


your body talks

by ClementineKitten



Series: btcu (body talks cinematic universe) [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (a lot of both of those), Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Hinata Shouyou is Sunshine, Intimacy, Kageyama Tobio is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Pining, Public Display of Affection, but he's trying his best, idiots to lovers, lots of gay yearning, this is long sorry i have kghn brainrot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClementineKitten/pseuds/ClementineKitten
Summary: Hinata's love language is touch, and Kageyama receives the brunt of this.(Alternatively titled: Hinata is affectionate and clingy, and this doesn't help Kageyama, who is trying desperately hard not to fall any further for him as the years wear on, from high school to his professional career. Nothing works. He is suffering, and deeply in love.)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Series: btcu (body talks cinematic universe) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915288
Comments: 77
Kudos: 481
Collections: kagsivity's fic archive





	your body talks

**Author's Note:**

> the spoilers are for everything. the whole shebang babey  
> here's the drinking game: drink every time you see a -- or ;. i do not take responsibility for any bodily harm. do this with water and stay hydrated  
> title's from body talks by the struts ft kesha

Slowly, then all at once.

It’s how some describe falling asleep, or falling in love.

It’s how Kageyama describes realizing that Hinata’s face has fallen onto his shoulder and he is now drooling on his jacket.

Kageyama, approaching unconsciousness himself, is still cognizant enough to register the weight on his side. Hinata’s head had been tipping to and fro for a while now as he struggled to keep his grip on the waking world, and now, he’s given up entirely and seems to have misconstrued Kageyama as a suitable pillow.

Now, Kageyama can’t exactly blame him for being exhausted. Five sets of running and jumping will do that to a person-- Hell, Kageyama doesn’t doubt he’d play volleyball until he was coughing up blood, but ever since the referee blew the whistle, bringing the game to an end and signifying their victory against Shiratorizawa, he’s looked entirely ready to zonk out.

But what Kageyama can blame him for is deciding to fall asleep like this. He shoves Hinata off of him, but this does little to allay the problem, as he drops like a dead weight into his lap. The impact doesn’t even wake him, despite the fact that he hit his legs face-first. 

He couldn’t have been out for that long, right? 

"Ew, gross." Kageyama grabs a fistful of his hair and pulls it without much intention to hurt him, just enough to wake him up. “Hey, Hinata,” he says in a quiet voice-- over half the bus is asleep, and those who are awake aren’t making much in the way of conversation. It feels wrong to shout.

A slight buzzing sensation tells him that Hinata is making some sort of noise, and he hesitantly lifts his head out of Kageyama’s lap. His brown eyes, usually wide and sparkling, blink up at him blearily. Quickly the expression in his eyes shifts to disdain when he realizes who exactly woke him up, and he lets out a short “what is it,” with a lack of intonation.

“Fall asleep on someone else.” Hinata’s tired eyes narrow a bit at that in incredulity, and he holds a glare for a moment or two before he winks out again, as if he didn’t hear him at all, and is back in his lap in an instant.

“Hey!” Kageyama says, hushed in an attempt to taper his volume. Hinata doesn’t reply. _Two can play it that game,_ Kageyama thinks mutinously, and pushes him off and onto the bus seat. If this development annoys him, he doesn’t show it, and instead curls up like a cat beside Kageyama on the limited space he has.

The whole thing is rather bizarre to bear witness to, especially when you’re a person like Kageyama, to whom such casual affection is very foreign. Especially when it’s Hinata. Hinata, who has really only touched him to give him a high five, or when they’re in the midst of the fight.

(It usually ends up being the latter.)

Maybe it’s just the fact that the sleepiness is marring his reasoning skills (which aren’t that great in the first place, admittedly), and he just wants anything to prop him up. This train of thought only irritates Kageyama a little further, since he could have used his bag for that. A bag doesn’t have muscle and bone to contest with… at least, it shouldn’t.

Kageyama’s tired, too. Hell, the scenery outside is blurring and shifting colours as his eyelids flutter, heavy with memories of the day’s events, and he doesn’t want to waste what precious brain power is left after the game worrying over Hinata. In fact, he’s pretty certain that if he continues like this, he’s going to get a headache. His body reached above and beyond his limits today, and a satisfied, earned ache is an ache nonetheless. Despite this physical fatigue, his brain is as active as ever, still flickering through scenes of the game. Shiratorizawa’s number five’s guess-blocking. Tsukishima’s stuff. Ushijima’s spikes. Hinata’s final hit. The looks of utter shock, bewilderment, and a certain profound frustrated sorrow that is only attained in the aftermath of a loss, frozen, in the eyes of the players on Shiratorizawa as the ball hit the ground, a sound that disrupted the heartbeat in Kageyama’s ears and echoes over and over in his mind even now.

His memories and thoughts are connecting, analyzing plays that stuck in his head, coming up with strategies to overcome obstacles like Ushijima that they’d certainly face at Nationals. His promise to Ushijima, that he’d force him to acknowledge him as more talented than Oikawa through his own skill alone, plays on determined repeat. It sends a thrill through his stomach. His blood spins and circulates all around his body; his pulse is a steady rhythm in his veins, longing to race with the electric energy, the synchronicity in chaos, of the court.

It’s weird to think about, but Hinata was probably feeling the same, even if he’s asleep, now. The same desire is thrumming through him, the same oxygen breathing life into him, causing his side to gently rise and fall. If Kageyama’s being generous, he was probably thinking up a stratagem, too. 

Having someone on the same page as him, playing the same tune, so close to him, was… kind of nice. A little. Just a smidge.

He attributes this to the fact that he spends so much time with awake Hinata, that asleep, quiet Hinata is a good change of pace, even if his head is pressed against Kageyama’s leg. Does he snore? He probably snores.

It doesn’t take much after that for Kageyama to fall into a peaceful sleep against the back of the bus seat (as a reasonable person would), and for Hinata to inch his way back onto Kageyama’s leg (whether he did this consciously or not, he can’t really say. After all, sleeping without proper elevation can’t be good for the neck).

Oh, how Kageyama didn’t realize how much this bus ride sealed his fate.

-

Kageyama is starting to notice a pattern.

He is a talented player. He knows this. He knows that Hinata knows this, so he doesn’t know why things have suddenly... shifted. In a bizarre way.

A high five is normal. In fact, he’d call it expected. This is not normal.

Hinata has taken to holding onto his hands a _little_ longer than he ought to. He can’t pinpoint when this started happening, but he knows that it’s a new development. They high five, and Hinata kind-of-almost laces his fingers into Kageyama’s, or after a particularly good set, he grabs his wrist and swings him around a little, gushing over his skills. 

(Kageyama still doesn’t exactly know how to respond to these things, since even through these “compliments,” he’s less than direct. He’s settled for shaking him off with a curled lip.)

“Do you know why Hinata is being weird?” he poses to a studying Sugawara their first night of Nationals, dressed in his pajamas, post-bath.

“If I catalogued every weird thing that Hinata did, I would lose my mind.” Sugawara smiles easily at him. “I assume you mean the hand thing?” He indicates the appendage in question as Kageyama crouches beside him.

“...Yes.”

“Well, if you ask me, I would say it’s because he likes you. He just doesn’t show it that much,” Sugawara reasons.

“He likes me?”

“Well, you’re friends, aren’t you?” Sugawara points out. Kageyama averts his gaze, and Sugawara chuckles. “Sorry, sorry, no need to be so shy.”

“So…” he sighs. “The hands?”

Sugawara puts his pencil to his chin, tapping the white eraser against his skin. “Hm… Ah, I get it. Do you know what a love language is, Kageyama?”

“Uh…” He doesn’t like the way that sounds. He’s not very good with languages. 

His lack of answer is enough of one for Sugawara. “Basically, it’s just how people show they care about others. So when Hinata gets all up in your business like that,” he says, spinning the pencil, “he’s trying to say that you’re friends.”

Kageyama takes a moment to digest this new information. “Huh.” He scowls at the floor. “Why couldn’t he show it regularly…?”

"Who's to say what's regular?" Sugawara's eyes glimmer dangerously. "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is… hm… don't be so cold, alright?" He pats Kageyama on the shoulder with a triumphant grin. "The way people show they care is how they like to receive it. Who knows, maybe Hinata's play skills will increase if you're affectionate back?"

"If I'm affectionate back?" The idea sends a shudder down Kageyama's spine. "How do I do that?"

"Wow, you're actually considering it? I'm impressed," Sugawara says, eyes wide.

Kageyama looks down at his feet with a dour expression. "If it can bring out some of his power, then sure. We need him at the top of his game to take on Miya-san and the rest of Inarizaki."

He glances up as Sugawara ruffles his hair with his free hand. “You’re a good kid.”

Kageyama blinks at Sugawara’s peaceful (proud?) countenance. “Um, thanks?” The possibility of responding to Hinata with the same energy he’s shown rolls through his mind, and makes his chest stir anxiously. What can he do that’s more than a high-five? He doesn’t really think he has the personality to do that hair-ruffling thing that Sugawara just did, and he suddenly feels a little dumbfounded.

“Or, if you really can’t do the hand thing, maybe politely tell him not to do it,” Sugawara responds, “or tell him to do something else, like grab your ankle. Would you be into ankle-grabbing?”

Kageyama ponders. “No. I would not be.”

Sugawara clicks his tongue, twirling his pencil again. Kageyama wonders if he’s going to toss it like a majorette’s baton. “Cross that one off the list, then. If you’re alright, maybe just let him do the hand thing without pulling away.” He lowers his voice, despite the fact that no one is listening to their conversation. “Hinata’s a little competitive. I think when you make a scene out of getting freaked out it only makes him do it more.”

Tipping back his head to look over Sugawara’s, Kageyama notes this information. He hadn’t thought about it like that-- the fact that his reluctance could have spurred on Hinata’s cloying attitude. He sighs internally; it’s just like him to persist against a person’s better judgement. “Of course,” he mumbles in response to his thoughts. “Well… it’s not like I can’t do that,” he adds, directing this toward Sugawara. “If it’ll help him play.”

(Sugawara, of course, has no idea whether this would affect Hinata’s performance, for better or for worse. He’s simply humouring the various obvious affections of his kouhai and the endearing density of the setter.)

Sugawara smirks. “Is this your new strategy for taking on Inarizaki?”

“Well, anything that could give us an edge over them would be good,” responds Kageyama without humour. He wouldn’t call himself nervous, far from it, he was rather excited. But at the same time, he’s no fool, though his grades may protest. Even in the short amount of time he spent with Miya, he was made well-aware of his skill several times over, not to mention his sizeable catalogue of awards and relationship with his team.

Kageyama can speak from personal experience that despite having never met the boy before, he gelled very easily with his setting style. That kind of adaptability is most certainly a skill to be feared, and the way he conducted his team and entranced the other players would be a force to reckon with.

He was confident in his abilities as well as the skills of his teammates, but at the same time…

“You’re right,” Sugawara concedes. “It’s going to be a tough fight tomorrow. How are you feeling?”

Kageyama looks down at the paper Sugawara had been writing on. His script is even and clean, and he can tell that it’s some sort of research paper for an advanced class. “There’s no other option but to win,” he says, simply, and with a touch of finality.

Sugawara lets out a weary sort of laugh. “The eighth wonder of the world, you are.” He tucks a loose lock of hair behind his ear, then holds out his fist as Kageyama tips his head to one shoulder. “Let’s win, then.”

“Yeah.”

(So, Kageyama takes his senpai’s advice to heart, and Hinata’s beaming face is impossibly distracting for reasons unknown. Slowly but surely, though, he starts to notice his hands becoming warmer and warmer…)

-

A lot of things are on Kageyama’s mind as he walks to school for the first day of his second year. After a whole season with Sawamura, Sugawara, Azumane, and Shimizu, he wonders just how different the team dynamic will be with their absences. Sawamura and Azumane gone means there’s two open spots in what had been their regular starting lineup, but it also means they’ve lost the stability in the defense that Sawamura helped command, and the sheer offensive power that Azumane brought to their games.

And thinking like that, there’s the possibility that Coach Ukai will rework the starting lineup in its entirety to compensate. He’s not going down without a fight, though.

First years, too! They’d be getting new members. When he and the other second years joined, there was only four of them. He wonders if there will be more or less joining for the season, and similarly, finds himself pondering whether any middle school students saw Karasuno’s performance in Nationals and were compelled to come and join them. Honestly, it’s a little weird to think that he’s a senpai, starting now.

He wonders if a setter will be joining them. It makes the tips of his fingers crackle with static electricity. 

“Kageyamaaaaa!”

The death knell comes only a split second before a weight launches itself into his back. In mere moments, Kageyama is coughing with surprise at the sudden impact and his bag is jabbing into his side. Hinata is on his back. This is a new development. He hasn’t seen Hinata since the end of their first year, some odd two weeks ago.

“What the Hell?!” Kageyama yells as Hinata’s arms wrap around his neck like a noose. “Hinata, what?” he exclaims, trying to shake the other boy off. He does not give.

“I was gonna race you, but you were too far ahead,” Hinata says, his hot breath _way_ too close to Kageyama’s cheek. “Compromise! Yachi-san taught me that word.”

“You’re dumb,” Kageyama mutters. Hinata is, very obviously, not that heavy, and subsequently, not difficult to carry. At the same time, this was not how he expected to start his morning. They don’t even have practice this morning, since it’s, well, the first day of classes, but he assumes Hinata was on his way to the gym, same as he was.

“How rude!” Hinata says, offended. “We’re senpai now, Kageyama, you should be more mature.”

Kageyama, accepting that Hinata has no intention of getting off of him, flicks the side of his face. “You don’t get to tell me that.”

Hinata scrunches up his face. “Meanie. Hey, speaking of senpai, what kind of first years do you think we’ll get? A libero? A setter? Ooo, you’d probably be really mean to a setter.”

“Wh-- who do you take me for? I would not,” Kageyama retorts. True, he has no intention of being replaced, but at the same time, he would never be so hostile.

“You would. You would go up to him and work that classic intimidation, and say _don’t think you can get onto the starting line up so easy._ ” At least today has answered Kageyama’s question as to whether Hinata’s impression of him is any less annoying when his hands aren’t free to mimic his hairstyle (no, it isn’t).

“Shut up!” Kageyama responds brilliantly. He steels his footing, then leans over to one side, displacing Hinata and throwing him off balance.

“Wah! Wait! Kageyama-san! Don’t drop me!” Hinata pleads, and Kageyama concedes if only because, light as he is, the weight localized solely on his right side is enough to make him stumble, too. “Brr… aren’t _you_ cold today?” he mumbles this to himself, but if he would remember he is beside Kageyama’s ear, he would remember he can hear his comments. “I’m so hyped, though. Maybe some middle schoolers saw how crazy good we are and want to join!”

Something about Hinata’s magnetic positivity rubs Kageyama the wrong way. They _lost_ Nationals, they lost and Hinata wasn’t even on the court to witness it. They lost, and Kageyama took another step forward, while he was cloaked in a mask and a jacket and forced to watch a 2D recreation of the multi-dimensional game space.

They lost, and Hinata was alone.

Does he blame himself? Is he afraid to bring it up?

Hinata being afraid of something is a ludicrous idea in his mind, but an idea in his mind nevertheless.

“You think?” He wants to be more direct, but he can’t.

“Yeah, I do. Seeing the Little-- Udai-san at Nationals is what made me come here, anyways!” Hinata bubbles. Then, as if reading Kageyama’s mind, sensing his hesitation in the very air around them, opens his mouth slowly. “Even though we didn’t win.”

Kageyama looks ahead of him. The familiar dirt brown roads in campus. The passages between buildings and their overhangs. They’re almost at the gym now, and they look stupid, Hinata clinging to his back like this. “How do you feel?” he asks, but the words feel too big and too awkward to have come out naturally.

There’s a silent lapse in time as Hinata formulates his response. “I’m frustrated,” is what he settles on. “I’m so mad that we lost when I was away.”

Kageyama listens.

“But I can’t stay down forever.” Hinata’s chin nestles into Kageyama’s shoulder. “‘Cuz we still gotta win, right? Nothing changed.”

That side of him, Kageyama thinks he likes. The unwavering, steadfast passion, that unshakeable drive, the way he stands back up, broken, bloodied, and bruised, and dives headfirst into the next challenge. But even with that, he knows how difficult it is to reconcile after a devastating loss. Because it’s Hinata. Especially because it’s Hinata.

When you give it better than your best. When you throw yourself into the fray with reckless abandon. When you put everything you have into the game, when you do everything right, but it’s still not good enough. You don’t win. And you’re left dizzy and chilled as the fever begins to make its way around your shivering body.

And yet he comes back.

“I mean… I wanna play Hoshiumi-san again, and beat him for real this time!” Hinata continues. Kageyama can’t exactly see his expression from the way they’re positioned, but he assumes that his face is shining in that wistful way of his whenever he talks about spiking.

“Obviously,” Kageyama replies. “Just don’t get sick again.”

“Hey! It was one time,” Hinata shoots back, embarrassed.

“Coupled with all the times you got a nervous stomach?”

Hinata _hmphs_. “Maybe I’m still sick, and I’m getting my germs all over you,” he snickers, tightening his grip on Kageyama as he tries to, fruitlessly, shake him off again. “Nope! It’s time for Feveryama-kun!”

“If I get sick, who’s going to toss to you?” Kageyama points out, cutting off Hinata’s inane gloating.

“Hrgh… Damn,” Hinata curses. “You better toss to me a million times this morning to make up for it!”

“Make up for _what?_ ”

“Hey! You two aren’t fighting _already_ , are you? It’s the first day!”

As they come to the entrance to the gymnasium, Tanaka rounds the corner of the building, keyring on his finger. “Do you two ever give it a rest?”

“Morning, Tanaka-san!”

“Morning!”

“Morning, you problem children,” Tanaka says with a grin. Then, his expression shifts, contorting into one of confusion. He gestures toward their position, keys rattling as he does so. “What is--?”

Hinata takes this opportunity to dismount. He jumps off and lands with his arms stretched out, and his absence allows Kageyama to straighten his posture and roll out his shoulders, only looking vaguely disgruntled. He suddenly becomes aware of how cold his back is without him splayed out over it.

“Just trying to keep Kageyama on his toes, we know he needs it,” Hinata mocks. Tanaka blinks at them.

“Y’all are weird,” he says, not unkindly, in a joking tone. “I hope none of the new first years are as much of a headache as you two were.” He chuckles to himself, presenting the empty, darkened gymnasium to the two of them. Excitement rises into Kageyama’s chest. It hasn’t been that long since he had been in this very same gym, but he missed it all the same, he missed the squeak of the hardwood floor, he missed his team, he missed Hinata.

...He missed playing with Hinata.

“Thanks!” he and Hinata shout at the same time, both vying to be the first one through the door. They kick and struggle in front of a disappointed, but not surprised, Tanaka, as they both end up falling through at about the same time.

“I was first!” Hinata proclaims.

“No, I was!”

“Well, try to play nice, I’m gonna go meet up with Ennoshita,” Tanaka calls as the lights get flipped on. “Don’t scare off the newcomers!”

“Right!”

He goes, and Kageyama turns to Hinata. “Why would we scare them off?”

“You’re scary.”

“And you’re a dumbass.” 

He’s glad nothing has changed since they lost to Kamomedai.

-

Kageyama recalls Sugawara’s advice about Hinata’s way of showing affection a lot, nowadays. Is he doing it more than he used to, or is he doing it about the same, but Kageyama is simply more aware of it?

Because he does it a lot. Like, an absurd amount.

He puts an encouraging arm around Yamaguchi and pulls him in, laughing, whenever he nails a serve. He begrudgingly gives Tsukishima high fives after a particularly good spike or block. Nishinoya and Tanaka are always very receptive to his pokes and prods. Kageyama has since witnessed Nishinoya and Hinata try to pick each other up at the same time. Not even the first years (which there are four of) are safe from his wrath.

(Kageyama isn’t quite sure the type of person they were envisioning before they met Karasuno’s “illustrious” decoy, but it seems they’ve all come to accept it. Seiya, a wing spiker, seems to have fully embraced it, while Kurahara, a middle blocker, still goes straight as a pin when he gets hit with a signature Hinata hug. Coach Ukai and Ennoshita seem to have mastered a certain exchange of glances that is equal parts amused and irritated.)

But Kageyama is still his favourite victim, so it seems. Slaps on the back become full on leaps onto him soon after Hinata figures out his whole body can fit easily on top of him, and it’s about as much of a nuisance as it is an embarrassment.

The first time it happens is during their 3-on-3 with the new first years. Ennoshita had he and Hinata play together to show them “what a year at Karasuno can do to some troublemakers,” and after dazzling the opponents with a satisfying rendition of their quick for the first time, Hinata throws himself onto Kageyama with a loud, bright laugh, and the two boys stagger to the side.

“What was that? Hey! Ah, how I missed that feeling!” Hinata bellows, all starlight and sunshine, completely over the moon with the 1000-watt smile to show for it. He’s at the point where he’s so high on volleyball that the air has thinned and there’s no oxygen getting to his brain, and his IQ drops a couple deviations. “So cool! You’re so awesome!”

“D-dumbass,” Kageyama splutters, face colouring at the bold-faced compliment.

Tsukishima, disgust and scorn clear on his face, rolls his eyes and says, “the first one of the school year, a miracle.” Yamaguchi titters.

“Whoa… seeing it in person, it’s even cooler! That was sweet, Hinata-san! I’m sooo jealous!” Seiya says, cheeks red with excitement.

“Damn!” supplements Kurahara.

Kageyama doesn’t really hear the praise, because too much of his mental strength is focused, weirdly, on Hinata. It’s different from when he shot out like a bullet behind him on their first day of school, because then they were both in their Karasuno uniforms, now they’re in their athletic clothes. Skin against skin, his arm held flush against Kageyama’s neck, his legs dangerously close to wrapping around the entirety of his midsection. There’s a lot less clothes between them, and they’re in front of the whole team. That makes it significantly more weird than the hand thing Sugawara coached him through at Nationals.

“Yeah, but get off me. We’re in the middle of a game,” Kageyama says to a radiant Hinata.

“Aren’t you happy we did it?”

“Alright, alright, Hinata, detach yourself from Kageyama,” Ennoshita calls, clapping his hands. “Let’s get a move on! Kageyama, nice serve,” he says. Seiya rolls the ball under the net to them.

Hinata, looking not entirely sullen but with a distinct petulance to his expression, slides off of Kageyama, who picks up the volleyball and rotates to the backline. “Hey,” he calls as Hinata retakes his position. The redhead turns around to see him giving a thumbs up. He doesn’t say, “nice kill,” but he thinks the point gets across all the same.

Hinata returns the gesture with a confident, toothy smirk.

And that’s only the half of it.

At the end of an evening practice not terribly long after the 3-on-3 and the first years’ integration into the team, Hinata chats, animatedly, with Nishinoya and one of the first years (Onogi) about receiving. Onogi isn’t a libero, but he’s got a calm head on his shoulders and is a good all-arounder with no real holes in his capabilities, only things to improve and strengthen.

Kageyama hasn’t really spoken with him much.

“If you want, I can teach you-- hey, Kageyama!” Hinata cuts himself off as Kageyama passes, about to leave the gym. “Are you going? Wait, I’ll come with you!”

Nishinoya and Onogi exchange glances. “Sorry, Onogi! I’ll text you later! See you tomorrow!”

Kageyama looks at him from the corner of his eye as they retreat into the dusky evening. “What was that about?” he asks, very casually.

Hinata puffs his chest out in pride. “Onogi was asking me for receiving tips!”

At that, Kageyama snorts. “You? Receives?”

Hinata slaps his arm. “I’m great at receives!” he shouts indignantly. Kageyama fixes him with scathing enough glare to scorch the bark of a tree, and Hinata shies away into his shoulders. “I’m better at receives than I used to be!”

Kageyama’ll give him that, but he’s not going to say it out loud just like that. So he makes a vague noise of agreement, and Hinata smiles slyly, reaches out, and clasps his hand in Kageyama’s.

“What are you doing?” Kageyama exclaims, startled, as soon as Hinata intertwines their fingers. When he attempts to pull away, the shorter boy only gives him an innocuous, innocent look, swinging his arm in a large arc.

“What?” he says tauntingly. “Is something wrong, Kageyama-kun?”

“Let go of my hand,” Kageyama responds in turn.

“If you admit my digs are good,” Hinata stipulates. His condition causes Kageyama to groan, and the cognitive dissonance to rear its ugly head in his mind. Admitting -- rather, _saying,_ there’s nothing much to admit -- such a thing, especially when it’s just the two of them, outside of the heat of the court, seems unnecessary (not to mention against his strong personal convictions). At the same time, holding hands with Hinata is -- and he feels like he’s been thinking this a lot in relation to Hinata recently -- weird. He’s kind of sweaty. Probably because practice just ended, but Kageyama thinks a person can’t be as impassioned as Hinata is without running a bit hot all the time.

“Are you sick?” he asks instead of conceding to Hinata’s wishes. Hinata sniffs.

“One time! Are you gonna be like this every time I’m a little warm?” he whines.

“Well, do you want to get benched again?”

“I can take care of myself!”

 _Jeez, sorry for being cautious,_ a mutinous Kageyama thinks privately. His mind betrays him by supplying a second, similar thought: _sorry for worrying about you._

He is suddenly more aware of Hinata’s hand in his.

Naturally, he was a _little_ worried about Hinata, after he got that fever. Contrary to popular belief, he does have a heart. It wasn’t like he was thinking too hard about his physical health; a fever would probably go away with some good food and a full night of rest. What stuck in his mind a little longer than it had any right to was his face.

Drenched in sweat, flushed a deep crimson from ear to ear with illness and exertion, face contorted with a deep, desperate fury that he hasn’t seen on him before or since -- not even when the two of them fought during the team’s training camp in Tokyo, when Kageyama’s words finally settled in his mind and he snapped. That was the part of Hinata that lingered in his head, long after he left the gym with Kozume, and he focused his entire energy on integrating Narita into their rotation. He’s not one to be kept down for long, but that expression…

When he wiped his snot-filled, tear-stained face at Kageyama’s declaration of victory, and simply regarded him with fight smoldering behind reddened, wide eyes, it was a new breath of oxygen into the fire burning brightly inside him as well. No matter what, he was never going to let himself lose to Hinata. Not in determination, and certainly not in volleyball.

Even so, stepping in front of him, without him, had felt different. Out of place.

_Lonely._

This thought process culminates in a sickening jolt that pierces through his body, throat to toes, pulling his stomach taut into a compressed version of itself and then releasing it, which leaves it feeling played with and edgy and wrong.

All from a single sentence from Hinata.

Did something that happened during practice scramble his brain? 

As they converse, they make their way to the bike racks, and Hinata struggles with getting his bike out. He bites back with his usual dumb quips he probably thinks are clever as he wrestles with the handlebars, completely one-handed. Kageyama thinks it’s a stupid exercise in surperiority.

"Well then, you better," he sneers, keeping his mental break to himself. Hinata swings their hands back and forth, as if to make a point.

Lonely? Was that how he felt without Hinata? 

"I don't need you to tell me that!"

Well, it's true that Hinata has never left his side, not since the moment he stepped into Karasuno's gym and pointed an accusatory finger straight at Kageyama. Even during their tiff, Hinata stood with him, in spirit, as he tried figuring out the toss that stopped (unlikely that he would ever mention that to him, though). His presence has simply become standard in Kageyama’s life, in school, and in volleyball, and he can’t pinpoint exactly when that became commonplace, but this fact has him realizing that… it hasn’t really bothered him.

In actuality, maybe he liked it. A little.

The only thing Hinata expected of him was that he would get the ball in place. He faced Kageyama without a single preconception and crash-landed into his life demanding a set. He didn’t have a single idea about Kageyama’s relationship with the rest of Kitagawa Daiichi. He didn’t know about Kazuyo, or Miwa, or his parents. And Hinata _didn’t care,_ that was the most stupefying part about him. Hinata didn’t offer a second thought for his past. He just kept moving forward, persevering toward greater heights with a confident smirk that was somewhat baseless, but compelled by a vigorous, terrific vitality nonetheless. A hunger never to be satiated.

Hinata wanted to _win,_ just like him _._ He would never be satisfied with his current skill level, he would forever strive for greatness until the day he died.

Perhaps one would understand why Kageyama finds his face prickling with an unprecedented heat. The sky is milky indigo, fluid and dark, behind and in front of them, the warm glow of the gymnasium a whisper in their memories. Kageyama isn’t alone like he was in middle school, scuffing his runners with dirt as he kicked at stray rocks on the path, he’s alone with _Hinata_ , and he doesn’t know if that’s better or worse.

Hinata’s face crinkles as he sticks out his tongue, moonlight softening his sharp eyes and unruly curls. His hand is still tucked, shamelessly, into Kageyama’s own, and he has no idea when he plans to let go. If it’s until he gets validation, he best be prepared to hold that hand for eternity.

Something in his gut twitches unnaturally at Hinata’s expression.

“Anyway,” he continues. “I hate to admit it, but Tsukishima’s getting better at his weak, fake-out serve. You remember, the one he used in the Inarizaki game? At the end?”

They slip pretty easily into their regular volleyball-related and definitely not feelings-related banter, getting heated fairly quickly debating ideas and strategies. Determination be damned, Hinata’s technical prowess is still not yet up to snuff, and it shows when he’s put on the spot.

Hinata’s bike wobbles and bobs as he attempts to control it with one hand, and the other in Kageyama’s grasp is getting sweatier as the seconds go by. He’s a total mess, and Kageyama is nearly tempted to keep up the hand-holding charade just to see him continue to flail like an idiot.

“Well, Kageyama,” he says as they come to the split in the road where Hinata branches off and heads to his house. He’s standing a greater distance away, now, and it almost looks like they’re in a prolonged, awkward handshake. “Unless you admit how cool I am, we’re going to be stuck here forever.”

Kageyama tenses his arm and pulls his hand away. Hinata looks down at his hand, then at Kageyama’s, a scorned betrayal sparking in his eyes.

“See you tomorrow,” Kageyama drawls.

“Wait! You can’t do that!” 

“Can, and just did.”

Hinata fumes, pouting, but Kageyama thinks he’s done him a favour now that he can actually use both hands to steer his bike. “Don’t think this is over!” he calls as Kageyama begins to walk away. He simply rolls his eyes in response.

When he glances back, he sees that Hinata has mounted his bike and is beginning to pedal away furiously into the night. Kageyama’s attention turns to his right hand, suddenly cold without Hinata’s fearsome grip. He flexes his fingers, free.

...Hinata’s hands really were small, weren’t they? Much smaller than his.

It was kind of like they fit a little too well into the spaces between Kageyama’s fingers.

_Why did I think of that?_

And why is his face still a little flushed when Hinata has disappeared into the distance?

-

Kageyama can’t stop thinking about Hinata.

Not uncommon; while awake, a lot of his brain space is allocated to thinking about volleyball, and there was a point where it and Hinata became perplexingly inseparable in his mind. He’ll have to work on fixing that.

But this is more than that. This is _worse._

He lies in bed, hand held up and fingers splayed, contrasting against his ceiling. His other hand rests atop a volleyball pressed to his stomach. He had been setting to himself, a nightly routine to steady his heart and breathing and take his mind off of anything that wasn’t the comforting touch of cool leather.

However, setting with the hand Hinata had held so tightly got him thinking. And that was his least favourite thing to do.

He doesn’t know why he can’t get his mind off of the action. Why his thoughts keep racing, running laps of Hinata’s smile, the way the warmth of his hand subsided so agonizingly, the dark, dark sky.

He thinks he’s going a little crazy.

Putting his volleyball to the side, Kageyama whips himself into a sitting position, swings his legs over the side of the bed, and gets up. He’s keyed-up and antsy, like there’s an itch somewhere he can’t scratch, and he can sense that energy pinging through his muscles. He needs to do _something,_ it doesn’t matter what -- but running seems like the most simple way to get out this sudden, all-encompassing burst of… burst of…

What, exactly?

It’s a little fresh out, still, even with winter having melted into spring some time ago, its chill usually hangs in the air for weeks, so he pulls on a pair of leggings and a windbreaker. It’s nighttime, so he’ll keep the jog short, he just really needs to expel the gross, uncomfortable feeling building in him like a mineral deposit in a showerhead -- clunky, annoying, and might be alleviated with a vinegar soak.

He pads down the stairs and is shoving his shoes on in the genkan when a voice calls his name.

“Tobio? Where are you going?”

Miwa peers at him from the entrance to the kitchen, looking somewhat harrowed with her hair tied back into a messy bun, wearing the blue light filter glasses she only dons when she has to work late on her laptop. In one hand, she holds a bowl of rice.

“On a run,” Kageyama responds.

Her eyes widen a little. “This late?” she questions. “I thought you were asleep.”

“It’s not even nine.”

“Like I said-- asleep.” She smiles wryly. “Well, be safe.”

“I will.” He goes back to tying his shoes and Miwa is about to head back up the stairs when she suddenly pauses at their foot.

“Something up?” she asks.

Kageyama glances back at her suspiciously. He and Miwa tended to keep to themselves, so the sudden inquiry has him wondering if there was an ulterior motive, like she wants him to clean the bathroom or something. When she’s out of the house, she’s either working, attending classes, or with friends, so at home she’s usually just studying and doesn’t spend too much time with him.

“Why?”

Miwa’s eyebrow quirks. “Jeez, is it a crime to ask what my brother is up to?”

This is the issue. There’s a disconnect, a rock caught where their gears should mesh as easy as breathing. They grew up in the same house, they spent so much of their youth playing the same sport, Kageyama looked up to her with wonder and now he towers over her.

(...That may be a slight overstatement. Height runs in the Kageyama family.)

They don’t flow well. They don’t see each other enough to try.

“No,” he lies. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“I didn’t ask if something was wrong. I asked if something was up,” Miwa shoots back. She leans against the staircase’s post. “Besides, you prefer morning runs to night. So…”

Irritation prickles in Kageyama’s stomach. First Hinata won’t get out of his head, then his sister needles him like a dysfunctional sewing machine, what’s next? He goes out for a run and slips in the mud, scraping his hands to save himself from the fall? Even the simple thought is enough to make the setter quiver.

“Why do you care?” he replies noncommittally. 

Miwa pinches the bridge of her nose, rubbing where the glasses cross. “I just banged out a paper with way too many footnotes and I don’t need your attitude. Listen, if you’re going to jog just because, go ahead, but something seems weird.”

Kageyama leans back. Curse her. She’s naturally perceptive (perhaps it all funneled into her), paired with, well, being related to him. If she was around long enough to figure out that something was bothering him, he can’t risk having her figure out the root cause was some sunshine incarnate-- bright, blinding, cause of many health problems.

He looks down at his shoes.

At his lack of an answer, she prods. “Is it volleyball?”

Is it?

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Miwa parrots. Kageyama doesn’t elaborate, and she sighs. “Why don’t you come to the dinner table, Tobio. I’ll get you some rice.”

She disappears back into the kitchen, and Kageyama, resigned to his fate, starts undoing his shoes. He feels even worse than he did when he decided to go exercise, because now he must contest with the mortifying idea of his sister finding out he’s stressed because _a boy held his hand_ and it made him think. It’s stupid. The whole thing is dumb. Kageyama ought to give Hinata a piece of his mind.

Miwa settles them into the table with two bowls of rice. She rests her chin on the bottom of her palm. With the fingers on her other hand, she taps the edge of the table as Kageyama stares into the bowl dejectedly. “What’s up?”

Kageyama wonders how he would even start.

“Hinata’s being annoying,” he says, telling her the honest truth.

“Hinata-- oh, right, the spiker. You’ve mentioned him.” Kageyama doesn’t know how to feel about her hesitation. “That’s all? That’s not really like you, Tobio.”

Kageyama’s annoyance only grows, but he keeps his face stoic.

The Tobio that Miwa knows is someone else. A ghost of the past who persists only in faint whisps. He’s no longer a child tottering after their grandfather, playing volleyball because he likes the way the gym smells, laughing and babbling in the way kids tend to do with his teammates at a very young age. Getting all red and quiet when an older player complimented his serves. Pulling back his skills to play just a minute longer.

He rockets forward at full-throttle now, by the wishes of no one save himself, and doesn’t have the time to get all red and quiet when the thorn in his side smiles up at him.

(Now, Kageyama doesn’t know this -- he has no reason to, really -- but when you’ve been struck with a sharp object, be it an arrow, a knife, or a large thorn, it’s best to keep it there, lest you bleed out and die.)

The Tobio Miwa knows didn’t go to Karasuno. Hadn’t met Hinata.

He wants to groan audibly, but keeps it inside. “You don’t know him,” he replies.

Miwa chews her rice thoughtfully. “Yeah. Still. What’d he do?”

“Held my hand and smiled.”

Wait.

Shit.

Did he say that out loud? He didn’t mean to say that out loud. The thought kept tearing through his mind like a disgraced demolitionist, not really giving him much else way to focus on other, more rational thoughts.

Kageyama feels… _gross,_ truly and deeply gross on the inside. A certain type of unsettling warmth pervades his entire stomach, and every organ in his body feels like a strike pad while he’s just swallowed a match. He’s off-kilter. Perturbed. _Wrong._

He’s anxious.

It builds and builds, until he feels like he can’t breathe, and he doesn’t know why. The emotion, the world itself, is too much for him. He can’t think, for a terrifying, long moment, let alone speak. He has no idea what crashed over him to set him off, and all he thinks about is Hinata, Hinata, Hinata…

“Tobio?” Concern laces Miwa’s call of his name. Her eyebrows are sloped downward in worry, “Tobio, what’s wrong? You look pale.”

He gasps. 

The walls of his dining room are light and minimalistic. There’s a framed photo of him and Miwa that he can see. The table is glossy and clean. The floor is beneath him.

His grandfather taught him, once, if he ever got anxious before or during a game, all he had to remember was to look at what was around him. To take a deep breath, and remember where he was, and if he knew he was there, he would be able to go back to being okay, slowly. So that’s what he does. He hears his grandfather’s voice echoing, loud and clear, but in turn, his thoughts circle to Hinata -- the better person. The person his grandfather never got to meet.

Well, now he just feels miserable.

Miwa bites the inside of her cheek. “Sorry, Tobio, I didn’t realize that…” She looks genuinely surprised in the gentle dining room light. “You would get so upset.”

It makes a mite of sense that their first proper conversation in some time involves Kageyama breaking down. He misses her. He misses when they were children and he could tell Miwa anything. He misses when Hinata wasn't screwing with his head so much.

Kageyama sets his shoulders, straightens his spine, and exhales. Then he shrugs. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not, really, but alright.” Miwa’s eyes narrow slightly, as if scrutinizing him. She moves her chopsticks in a stirring motion. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have asked.” Her eyes find the window, and she waves her hand dismissively. “If you want to go jog, make it quick. It’s dark out. Wear your reflective gear.”

Kageyama raises his head to look at her. His body doesn't quite feel his own, but he nods all the same. Miwa rolls her head, and winces -- she was working on that paper for quite a while, wasn't she?

"Oh, and you should probably talk to that Hinata kid. If hand holding freaks you out that much."

His chest tugs and pulls, his heart twists and flips, his stomach roils and starts. "That's not it."

Then what, pray tell, is it?

Miwa looks at him evenly, dark eyes glowing with a complex understanding Kageyama can't quite pin behind her lenses. A small, hesitant, but clearly present smile turns the ends of her mouth upward.

She reaches forward and musses up his hair. "Be good."

Kageyama screws up his face.

But at the same time, part of him feels like a kid again, and it’s a pyrrhic victory. 

-

The next time Hinata latches onto his arm, Kageyama gets flustered.

He doesn’t know what’s going on, but as soon as his hands wrap around him, he remembers his conversation with Miwa the night before, the way his lungs shut down, how the image of Hinata lucidly remained stuck to his eyelids as he lied in bed.

So he pulls away vigorously, and Hinata makes a face at him. “What’s your damage?”

He’s been all stirred up lately, and this little shit has the _audacity…!_

“Why do you do that?” Kageyama nearly spits at him, Sugawara’s words ringing in his ears.

“Huh? What?” Hinata blinks up at him. “Oh. ‘Cuz it’s fun.”

Kageyama should be ashamed for giving him the benefit of the doubt, ever. “Fun?”

“Do you know what that means, Kageyama?” Hinata says, attempting to be suave with his chin nestled between his thumb and forefinger. “It means doing things for the sake of doing them.”

“I know what fun means, you idiot.”

“Great!” He re-gloms back onto Kageyama’s arm. “Then we’re on the same page.”

The same confusing cocktail of emotion rises in him, and the sensation of being trapped washes over him like ice-cold water. He wants to break away again, but there’s this unnatural contradiction that blooms in him in tandem, a voice that quietly, inanely, pleas for him to let this happen. Hinata being so close to him makes it worse, it only strengthens the panic fluttering in his stomach, but for some unknown reason, he also smooths it over, mediates his distress. Like a knife over an overflowing cup of flour, he serves as the denominator, what nudged him to the brink while holding him back all the while.

“We can’t race like this,” Kageyama points out.

“Okay, then,” Hinata follows up. His lips twitch. “Three, two, one--”

And then he’s off.

“Hey-- Asshole, that’s a false start!”

This is easy. This is good. Competing with Hinata has become a near second nature, and it, for a moment, distracts him from the storm brewing inside of him.

(He beats Hinata, too, which makes him feel a little better.)

“Wah…” Hinata whines indistinctly. He had thrown himself onto the ground in an attempt to slide into first place, and he grimaces at Kageyama from below his eyelashes.

“And that’s 368-366,” boasts Kageyama. Hinata clicks his tongue crossly.

“I’ll even it out soon, just you wait,” he decrees. Kageyama plops down on the ground beside him, satisfied with his victory.

“I’d love to see you try,” Kageyama scoffs.

“I’ll make you eat those words!” Hinata promises as he clambers into a sitting position, pushing his bag to his side and shifting his body to face Kageyama’s, scooting closer to him until their knees almost touch. “Wait and see, by the time we graduate, I’ll have doubled your score!”

“Oh, yeah?” Kageyama jeers, trying very hard to ignore how close Hinata’s legs are to his. He can’t take another pour of flour into the cup.

“Yes, yeah!” Hinata leans forward, hands on his knees, simpering directly at him. His eyes glimmer and shine in such a fashion that Kageyama can easily tell he’s bought into his own hype, and his face is a good thirty centimetres away, bright and bubbly and painted pinkish in shades of fearlessness.

He’s close enough that Kageyama could kiss him if he wanted to.

Wait.

Waitwaitwait.

_What?_

Did his brain just tell him that? His brain just told him that. His brain told him that Hinata is within kissing distance. His brain is a right traitor hellbent on making his body into a fool’s puppet, because there is no way in _Hell_ that Kageyama is going to kiss Hinata, or even wants to. It’s impossible. It’s a totally crazy, idiotic thought, and he has no idea what dark crevice in his mind it came out of.

Absolutely zero clue.

The intrusive thought shocks him so much, he’s left staring agape, mouth hanging open while Hinata waits for an answer to his jab, lips twisted into a tiny half-frown. God, now he’s looking at his lips! What’s up with him? And why is the horrible feeling suddenly aflame? The sides of the fire lick at his throat, burning up the words he would have shot back, if he wasn’t teetering on the edge of insanity.

“Uh, Kageyama? Why are you all red?” asks the bane of his current existence. “Did you really need to push yourself to get the better of me?” he tacks on, ego seeping into his words.

Kageyama really doesn’t have time for Hinata’s shit right now.

“Shut it,” he hisses, the unintentional venom making Hinata’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline.

“Hey! What did I do?” Hinata complains. “You’re being weird, it’s gross.”

What’s _gross_ is that Kageyama is now thinking about kissing Hinata Shouyou, and he can’t look at his face or the attached physique without that charging toward the forefront of his mind. He has never thought about kissing _anyone_ before, never paid the concept much mind even when Miwa went through a few boyfriends, people he _met_ and thought were fine folks, people with whom he was, of course, somewhat cognizant of the fact they were involved with his sister. It never mattered -- volleyball was at the top of his list of priorities.

Well, he isn't exactly thinking about kissing a volleyball now, is he? 

He's truly, unequivocally, royally, fucked.

Ennoshita saves his ass by showing up with the key right then and there, and Kageyama jumps to his feet, the strap of his bag digging into his neck as he moves so quickly. Hinata eyes him quizzically, but he refuses to make eye contact, or he may genuinely burst into flames.

"Morning, you two," their captain says, yawning.

“Morning!” Hinata and Kageyama respond, their tension forgotten for a split second.

Kageyama gets changed in record time and, instead of hanging around at the door for Hinata, sprints out like his life depends on it. He can hear his familiar squawk of dismay from back in the club room, but he can’t stop. He needs to get away from him as fast as possible, maybe then he can relax and figure out what the fuck is going on.

He collapses on one side of the gym, away from the entrance and hidden from view, and runs his hand through sweaty bangs. The running doesn’t take his breath away in the slightest, but the rosy colour, stolen across his cheeks, makes his exhales funny.

He attempts to right them, three counts in, one hold, six out, one hold. His breathing steadies through repetition and he moves to his limbs, tightening his hands into fists and releasing them slowly, stretching out his fingers as far as they can go.

Fingers that were once entwined with Hinata’s.

This is horrible. He doesn’t _actually_ want to kiss Hinata, right? Because that would be dumb, right? Inconceivable, right?

He presses his palm to his own mouth, and the warmth of his face seeps into his fingertips. It’s got to be some off-the-wall hormonal response to the stimuli that is all his jumbled-up thoughts regarding the decoy. He’s just confused. His brain and his body are in a bit of a tizzy, and the communication between them is off in the calibration. 

Oh, good God, now he’s thinking about it. He has been using all of his mental power to keep said scenario _out_ of his conscious thoughts, and now it’s plowing through all his defenses, much like Hinata himself, screaming that he’s here in the most obnoxious way he can.

This can’t be his life. 

He refuses to let this be his life.

-

Kageyama spends math class daydreaming about kissing Hinata.

Not like he _wants_ to, mind you, quite the opposite, in fact. When he’s playing volleyball, he doesn’t have time for worldly distractions. There’s only him, the court, the players, and the ball. The gym breathes with pure kinetic energy, and he falls into place alongside it.

He couldn’t give less of a crap about functions, though, so it gives his mind time to wander.

The most awful part of the whole thing is that he can _feel_ it, he can feel Hinata’s hand in his, he can feel the weight of his body pressed against his chest, he can even feel the sensation of his breath, coming out in puffs of hot air against the corner of his own mouth, and it makes his legs go pin-straight beneath his desk and his fist tightens around his pencil so quickly he almost snaps it. The person sitting adjacent to him gives him a concerned look, and he stares down at his desktop in shame.

Kageyama doesn’t know what part of the brain is responsible for thinking like a rational person, but it’s on vacation, replaced with fantasies (he cringes) of Hinata’s lips on his. Would he be a bad kisser? He’d probably suck at it. Kageyama’d be better at it than him, for certain. He’d laugh and his nose would crinkle up and he’d hit Kageyama with some stupid one-liner before leaning into him, and their lips would part, Hinata angling his head to fit into his body, and what would they do about their noses? Kageyama doesn’t know. Kissing seems more complicated that it’s worth, but his accursed head won’t stop spinning situations around and around, and it’s enough to make him dizzy.

The same student watches him as his breath hitches, and he tries to keep his cool. He finds that significantly harder when Hinata is involved. He shoots his desk neighbour an apologetic glance, and turns his attention to the worksheet the teacher is going through. Something about… reciprocal functions. His brow furrows. What’s the point in creating a graph that can’t cross certain parts? How does that work?

The more he turns the concept of kissing Hinata over in his mind, the more normal it gets, and that terrifies him, fully and completely. The less outrageous the taste of his mouth becomes. The easier it starts to be to imagine his touch, closer and more intimate than anything he tried while they were at practice. His tongue goes dry and he slides down, dourly, onto his desk, appreciating the feeling of cool paper on his face.

“Kageyama-kun?”

His teacher calls his name and, jolted out of his self-indulgence, he straightens immediately. “Yes?”

“Could you tell me the answer to question E?” she asks, holding a piece of chalk in one hand, the other on her hip. Kageyama looks down at his paper. He usually tries to pay attention, at least a little bit, but math tends to fly over him either way, compounded with his current crisis. _If f(x) = 1/(x-2), what is the domain of f(x)?_

Kageyama only vaguely knows what any of those words mean. “Uh… two.”

A couple classmates snicker at his expense, and his teacher shakes her head. “Well, you’re part of the way there. Moriyama-kun?”

“X can’t equal two, such that X is an element of the real numbers.”

“That is correct. Kageyama-kun, please stop daydreaming and pay closer attention. This will be on Friday’s quiz,” his teacher admonishes sternly before she turns to write the answer on the chalkboard, That’s right, they did have a quiz on Friday, didn’t they? He makes a point to scribble in the answer before his thoughts drift away from him and back into the danger zone.

Hinata isn’t thinking about him. In fact, he’s not absolutely certain Hinata is completely awake. Nevertheless, he definitely isn’t thinking about kissing him, and that makes discomfort expand in his stomach, leaving him feeling ugly, bloated. It’s different from his confusion and upset, it’s a slimy, crawling sensation, a feeling of resignation and unease that permeates through him in his entirety. It’s as if his parents, his family, the whole world revolving, is intimately familiar with everything racing through his head. He’s obvious. He’s unnatural.

That’s right -- weirdness of thinking about kissing Hinata aside, he can’t forget that it’s _Hinata_ that’s on his mind. He’s Kageyama’s partner in volleyball, and arguably his best friend, for what it’s worth, he’ll never be anything more, and never anything less. And Kageyama thought he would be fine with that, didn’t desire for anything different, until this morning. Because now when he closes his eyes, Hinata’s flushed face appears so viscerally behind them that he thinks he needs to go have a drink of cold water, lest he sets aflame.

A snowball has a better chance of surviving in Hell than Kageyama does at actually kissing Hinata. It’s a farce, an utter farce.

Hinata prances around, laughing and joking with everyone. He’s an infection, a charismatic one at that, and there’s no way he would ever get involved with someone as dark and dreary as Kageyama. Besides, it’s not like he’d be into guys anyways. He belongs with someone bubbly like him, like Yachi. Not Kageyama. Never Kageyama.

Kageyama isn’t about to lose the one person who jumps for him without a single doubt in his mind for some stupid math class delusions. Not going to lose the teammate who stubbornly smashed through his defenses with no remorse and without looking back. Not in a million years. 

This feeling, this yearning desire, it gravitates and solidifies into something more and more tangible within him. Something he’s never felt for another human being before. An affection notably different than his passion for volleyball. Something that people write music and poems and stories about, something that others with more a grasp on the human condition than he wind and twist into pieces of art, something that makes him want to go lie down and never look at Hinata ever again.

He can’t let this continue. For himself, for Hinata, and for the sake of the team, he refuses to let himself be dominated by some… some…

_Crush._

Defeat exhausts his mind, and the tiredness only causes a flame of anger, his final stand, to flicker within him.

He can’t let Hinata beat him. Not over these dumb feelings, and like Hell is he going to succumb to them.

All he needs to do is freeze them out.

-

Easier said than done.

As the days progress, he stops reciprocating Hinata’s physical affection. He didn’t respond to them with enthusiasm in the first place, and mostly merely tolerated them, but he starts to push him away. He shakes him off his back. He pulls his hands away. How Kageyama feels about Hinata is dangerous enough as is, he can’t risk indulging his shame.

He has so much he wants to do with his life. He wants to play against challengers who take him to their level. He wants to keep fighting against better and better people, break the ceiling of his own limits, and Hinata already _does_ that, but he wants to triumph over others, too. He wants to be in the Olympics. He wants to stand on top of the world, and Hinata promised he would stand with him.

Wading into such murky territory with the only one who faced him, all of him, with a breathtaking honesty that shook him to his very core, makes him sick.

Hinata throws his arms around Kageyama’s neck, and Kageyama wonders if he can even fathom what he does to him.

The sky is a deep, empty grey colour after practice one day, representing Kageyama’s stormy mood. He thought that pulling away from Hinata would be what was best for the both of them, but in truth, it only makes him feel worse. Specifically because when he does it with such vitriol, Hinata looks up at him, eyes widened with a soft surprise, and something else -- hurt. And it tears Kageyama up inside far more severely than it has a right to.

Often, Hinata just stubbornly tries again, but slowly he’s been backing off a little, a look of confusion mingled with something a little darker Kageyama can’t place.

He tries to take Kageyama’s hand as they walk into the evening, and he rips his arm away, his pace quickening slightly. Face twisted in irritation, Hinata skips to catch up to him.

“What is _up_ with you?” he demands. “You’ve been all twitchy since the start of the week!”

Like what’s “up with him” is going to be something he _ever_ divulges to Hinata. He stares straight ahead, into the ominous, whisping clouds. “You’re the one who keeps grabbing onto me and shit,” he retorts.

“You’re so vulgar-- and you don’t have to be mean about it!” Hinata chastises. Kageyama feels the impulse to grab him by his stupid collar and hold him up by the throat, but a part of him is so completely adverse to any physical contact as to assauge any further weird urges and thoughts that he feels trapped in his movement, suspended like a lost, confused boy in the viscous jelly mixture of life. “You didn’t have a problem with it before.”

“Like you would know that,” Kageyama seethes.

Hinata’s spry steps ground to a halt.

“Wait-- it bothered you?” he asks. The change in mood nearly gives Kageyama whiplash, and his eyes narrow.

"Huh?"

"The touching and the hugs and stuff." Hinata appears uncharacteristically apprehensive, but he stares straight into Kageyama's eyes as if he can see the very colour of his soul. 

Where did this all come from? Where's his pithy, bullheaded remarks? And most importantly, how is Kageyama supposed to respond to that without exposing himself? 

"Uh… " Hinata pouts at him, clearly expecting an honest answer, and Kageyama fumbles with some useless thoughts here and there internally before spouting something vaguely coherent out.

"No-- I mean, yes, I mean, not really, idiot," is about the best he can do.

Hinata perks up. "Not really?" Then as soon as the words leave his lips, he deflates again. "Then why are you being weird?"

_Because I haven't been able to stop thinking about you? You're a bad kisser, right, Hinata?_

Yeah. Like he'd voice _that_ one.

"You're the weird one," he deflects flawlessly.

"Am not!" Hinata exclaims. "And jeez, I was even feeling a little sorry for making you upset!”

How, Kageyama ponders, how did he get to a point in his life where he finds himself face-down in a pillow wondering if Hinata would grab onto his face or his shoulders to try and get up high enough to reach his lips?

How did these things manage to infuriate and endear him at the same time? It doesn't make a lick of sense.

"Kageyama, maybe your life would be easier if you just told people how you really felt," jeers Hinata.

Kageyama wants to pull his hair so very badly. "I always say what I feel," he objects.

"Ha! Right!" Hinata chortles. "I'm not in your head, dumb dumb face, so I don't know things unless you say them," he says easily.

That's Hinata logic, true and pure.

For someone like him, putting thoughts to words is probably about as secondary as breathing, helped in part due to his poor lack of filter. He's earnest, and kind, and the opposite of Kageyama. He talks to others without any hesitation.

Kageyama has never been a wordsmith. He can't seem to put his mind into phrases others can understand. He's been getting better, communicating with more ease, but it still doesn't come naturally in any sense of the word. This disconnect is only amplified in Hinata's presence.

He can't tell Hinata why he's freaking out, nor would he be able to word it. It would ruin everything.

"What would you know," he mutters drily.

"Sooo…" Hinata, coyly, reaches for Kageyama's hand.

"Nope." He draws away.

Struck, Hinata recoils. "Why, then? Are you doing the thing where you say one thing and mean the complete opposite?" He scowls at the ground. " _I didn't see your super awesome receive, Hinata,_ " he mocks, pawing at his hair.

"Hush it, you," snaps Kageyama. "I'm just…"

Just what? An idiot? A coward? A red-faced fuck up, who really screwed the pooch in falling for the first player that made him feel alive? 

Hinata skips ahead of him. Grey, white, and black clouds separate behind his bright orange hair, his hazel eyes. "Just what, Kageyama?" he questions, walking backwards. Kageyama is mildly impressed that he's still leading his bike somewhat effectively.

"Adjusting," Kageyama mumbles quietly.

"Heh?" Hinata chirps. "Did I hear that right? Kageyama Tobio is adjusting?"

Kageyama bristles at his shit-eating grin. "That means you're not used to it? That's your problem?"

"I never said that," he retaliates, but the damage is done. Hinata spins around, nails his kickstand with his foot, and the pair come to an unfortunate pause.

"Aw, Kageyama!" he coos. "You're not used to touch!"

"No," Kageyama responds, headstrong.

"No, yes, or no, no?" Hinata teases.

"What does that even _mean?"_

"Here, Kageyama, hand over your… hand," Hinata demands, arms akimbo. When Kageyama shakes his head fervently, Hinata purses his lips with an odd little squeak. "This is an important life skill, you lug, I'm not going to saw your fingers off."

_Yeah, but the alternative is so much worse._

His mushy feelings and his competitive nature are at war as he, hesitant, shoves out his hand with a look askance. Hinata pounces on it quickly, grabbing his wrist and pressing a palm to Kageyama's own.

Hinata's features look particularly soft and gentle in the greyish shadows, illuminated by the streetlamps hanging above them. Kageyama notes this fact as he steals a side-glance. He's always been cute, in a scrappy, boyish way. And Kageyama is left cursing his mind for this whole crush thing that has him acknowledging that he kind of wants to brush those mussed-up orange locks aside and lean down to kiss him. 

He's world-endingly close, and, theoretically, Kageyama _could_ do it.

He won't. He can't. 

The tips of Hinata's fingernails don't reach Kageyama's as he presses their hands flat together. "Now give me the other."

Kageyama obliges. He feels like a fool.

Hinata doesn't _know._ Hinata doesn't know what he's thinking about, the whirlwind of thoughts turning his head into the world's most stressful merry-go-round. The light gets dimmer by the second over the two of them, standing palm to palm, and he can't help thinking about the careless intimacy Hinata is forcing onto him, with zero repercussions. In his head, he doesn't conceive of Kageyama as a viable romance option. He's not tripping over the same misgivings. He's just being who he is -- brilliantly dimwitted, and selfish, doing whatever he wants.

"Then you do this!" Hinata's fingers slide down into the spaces between Kageyama's, and he clamps down into a steady, supportive hold.

The bastard is actually giving him step-by-step lessons on how to hold a hand. Kageyama closes his own hands over his. And they just stand, Kageyama's heart having the time of its life clogging his throat and making his chest into static, for a few painful, agonizing moments, nothing said between them. Just them, the beating of their hearts, and the grey, grey sky.

Then Hinata's grip tightens.

So does Kageyama's.

And, well, now they're just competing again. 

Kageyama tightens up his stance, willing the flush out of his face now that they've come back into well-worn territory, pushing into Hinata, who responds with similar forward force. This is just another game to him. Another competition.

Hinata smirks with bravery. He pulls back a little, then shoves his face into Kageyama's, hopping onto his tiptoes. Their noses almost touch, he's too damn close. Kageyama jumps backward, releasing his clasp.

"I win!" Hinata shouts triumphantly. 

_By playing dirty,_ Kageyama thinks bitterly. "What was the point of that?"

Hinata wipes his hands of sweat on his track pants. "Well, since I'm not super sure you're not a volleyball-playing machine--"

Physical contact rule broken, Kageyama swats at Hinata. He dodges. "--I thought I would teach you a basic life skill. Touching other people!"

Kageyama blinks at him, an unexpected emptiness making his stomach go cold at Hinata's rationale. "You're dumb," he says, not capable of mustering much else up.

"I'm helping you!" Hinata insists as he fetches his bike.

A machine, huh? He's been called that for years. Hinata isn't the first, and he certainly won't be the last. But it hurts a little more, twists the knife a little deeper, coming from him.

He's cold, calculating, with unmatched precision. Unfeeling. A robot.

Of course Hinata perceives him as such. He's the brains of their operation, Hinata is the raw athleticism and flailing limbs. He's his human half.

And everyone knows a human couldn't love a machine.

-

After Kageyama comes to terms with the fact that he desperately wants to kiss Hinata and the feeling couldn’t possibly be mutual, he decides that the worst thing he could do is let this unrequited crush show. He can’t help the rush of blood to the face when Hinata grabs onto him suddenly, but he can help treating each physical interaction like a challenge.

He holds Hinata’s hand tighter. He hoists Hinata up on his back when he takes a leap of faith. Once, Hinata takes a running start at him while he’s busy cleaning up and launches himself into Kageyama’s arms like a cannonball without a single reservation, and Kageyama catches him.

Kageyama doesn’t think that he was expecting that one, because he looks up at Kageyama’s pleased, devilish grin and his face colours a regrettably endearing shade of red, before he fumbles around with his limbs and all but falls out of Kageyama’s arms in his panic-induced struggle.

(Kageyama won’t let him win that easily, though, so he holds him until Ennoshita gives him a disapproving look. Tanaka and Nishinoya, however, applaud respectfully. Hinata scrambles off of him, flushed -- a mild annoyance, because what was he expecting, really? Tsukishima glares at the pair like they just killed his dog, or something.)

It’s all for the sake of the team. Acting differently around Hinata, getting up in arms over his foolish antics, those could drive a wedge into Karasuno’s dynamic, and that’s the last thing Kageyama wants. He can put aside these feelings. He can play as he always has with this inside of him.

This is the conclusion he’s managed to come up with after lying in bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling for an egregious amount of time.

That was the past. This is now.

Now, Hinata’s face was a foot from his, body tucked into a sleeping bag, head resting on a pillow, hair a damp mess and mouth a bright smile. Training camp with Nekoma-- it worked well last year, so Takeda made it a point to set up a second one this time around. The day had dwindled into evening and slipped into night while the boys bathed (as a consequence of the Hinata development, it’s become kind of difficult looking at him shirtless), and now they were all laid up and ready for practice match ahead of them the next day.

And Hinata is absolutely elated.

“You’re excited, too, right, Kageyama?” he whisper-shouts in the dim light. There’s a warm glow from a lamp in the corner-- Ennoshita had put it on a bit ago and said it was lights out in five minutes, so they all better get into bed. “Kenma wouldn’t tell me anything about their first years, he said I just have to wait and see what they’re made of,” he continues.

“Probably didn’t want to give us an edge,” Kageyama responds.

Hinata wiggles in his sleeping bag. “I can’t wait for tomorrow! I wanna know if we can keep up our winning streak.”

“Alright, kids,” says Ennoshita, suddenly entering the room before Kageyama can reply. “Time for bed.”

The third years trailing after him groan in disappointment, presumably just to annoy him. “I’m not a kid, I’m a man,” Tanaka sniffs as he passes by, and Ennoshita pats him on the shoulder sympathetically.

Kageyama hears the crowd of first years in the corner murmur enthusiastically amongst themselves. They had all admitted to seeing Nationals the year prior and watching the Karasuno and Nekoma match, so their excitement was well-founded.

Ennoshita flips off the light and there’s rustling and chatter as everyone settles into their sleeping bags and flips around, trying to get into a good position. Finally responding to Hinata, Kageyama mutters, “you won’t be able to find out if you aren’t well-rested.”

Hinata scooches a little closer to Kageyama, his bed set shuffling audibly. ‘I’m gonna sleep so well, so I can play Kenma with everything I have,” he whispers furiously. “We, I mean. You have to sleep well, too. And everyone else.” A hand pops out of his sleeping bag and he gestures weakly. Kageyama shrugs his bag up to his chin.

“I won’t be able to, if you keep talking,” he replies. Hinata makes an offended face.

In contrast to Kageyama, Hinata shimmies up and flops his arms outside his sleeping bag, folding them up and putting his hands under his chin. “Blah, you.” His face crumples up in a sleepy, half-hearted attempt at a sneer.

It’s cute.

Kageyama likes to listen to Hinata talk, but he can’t say that out loud. Especially when he’s tired and contemplative. The energy is nice, too, like he’d ever admit that, but when he slows down, there’s something special. It’s like a whole other side of him, juxtaposed against his unmitigated ardor for life.

“It’s kind of cold,” he complains.

Kageyama would beg to differ. It’s springtime, the weather outside is fairly temperate, and there’s air conditioning in the establishment, but he doesn’t think that it’s on. All that’s there is a fan for ambient noise. All in all, he finds the temperature comfortable, and has no idea what Hinata is talking about.

“No, it’s not,” he replies indignantly.

“Uh… for you, maybe,” Hinata murmurs back, managing to put spite into his hushed voice. “Give me your hand.”

“What? No.”

“Come on,” he whines. “You’re so tall! You have so much body warmth!”

Naturally, this is where Kageyama comes to an impasse. Is it more normal to keep his hand to himself, or give Hinata what he wants? Which is less suspicious? Hinata probably expects some pushback, that’s who Kageyama is, anyways, but if he’s too insistent, then, he may come across as overcompensating.

At the same time, they’re in a dark room, with their teammates, all about to go to sleep. Holding hands with Hinata at this point in time seems extremely suspect. 

Being attracted to someone makes _everything_ more complicated.

“Put your hands back in your sleeping bag, then.”

Hinata sulks at him. “But--”

“You two, stop talking,” Ennoshita says in a low voice. He doesn’t sound upset, but his tone is stern, and the two boys fall silent. Hinata purses his lips and raises his eyebrows, an inaudible plea. He reaches out toward Kageyama, and the latter sighs. Maybe he should take Hinata to get some pocket warmers.

Hinata’s unrestrained delight as Kageyama relinquishes his hand almost makes the defeat worth it. 

Kageyama does his best not to notice the fact that Hinata has shifted the tiniest bit closer to him to grab onto his hand. One around his palm area and the other on his wrist, Hinata’s hands pull at him and his arm extends as his hand is brought far too close to Hinata’s face.

“Dude, you’re warm. Like, hella warm,” Hinata points out. “Do you sit on your hands?”

Kageyama, personally, thinks he is average temperature. He also has no idea why Hinata is subjecting him to this -- it would definitely be more efficient to simply tuck himself into his sleeping bag. “No, I don’t, dumbass. Why would I?”

“Sheesh! Touchy, aren’t we?” Hinata joshes. “Okay, I’m going to sleep now. Bye!”

Kageyama wants to object, but he fears what will happen if he angers Ennoshita further by talking. Hinata’s eyes snap shut in time with a squeeze of Kageyama’s hand.

So, Kageyama watches Hinata.

Part of him feels a tad guilty -- Hinata has no idea about his feelings, so it’s almost like he’s taking advantage of his stupidity. But on the other hand, he was the one to initiate contact. Besides, it’s not as if Kageyama is deriving boatloads of pleasure from this arrangement, either.

Hinata’s face isn’t even peaceful as he tries to fall asleep. His features are all scrunched up as if he’s trying to win at being unconscious. Kageyama, tired himself, finds his senses all focused on the hand in his own -- the warmth of his touch, the strength of his grip (hopefully it would weaken as he drifted off, if he hadn’t completely let go by then), the proximity of his face to Kageyama’s. The way the moonlight fits the curve of his face, the gentle shadows craving upwards, playing across his body.

Kageyama blinks sleepily.

He breathes deeply, tensing and untensing his muscles to relax into his pillow. His eyes slide shut and the last thing he sees is Hinata’s darkened, comfortable, drowsy face.

(Maybe, had he kept his eyes open just a little longer, he would have seen Hinata peek out of his own, admiring the sight before him, too.)

Then, some hours later, weak, early morning sunlight piercing through the somber indigos and violets of the twilit sky rouses Kageyama out of his slumber. Eyelids raising reluctantly, the first thing he takes notice of the pricking numbness of his right arm.

The second thing he notices is Hinata.

And the third thing is Hinata’s hair, mere millimetres away from brushing his face.

It’s a blessing in disguise that the torpor mars his automatic response, which is to yell and reel back, and he instead reigns in his surprise with a hefty, sudden intake of breath. His mind snaps to attention. Last time he checked, Hinata was a respectable distance away from him, clinging to his hand.

It seems that in his sleep, he moved a good deal of inches forward, and rather than simply _holding_ onto him, he’s now lying across Kageyama’s arm and gripping his left hand (which Kageyama doesn’t even remember taking out of his bag, so he’s left confused as to how _that_ one came about).

Kageyama’s heart, taken out of its restful state, quickens deep in his chest. This isn’t some dumb affection thrown at him during practice, or the strange intimacy he’s shown as the two walk home together, this is Hinata cuddling him, at a training camp, in a room the entire team is sharing.

There’s not much room for doubt there, now, and Kageyama has no idea what to do. Push him off? Wake him up? His mind circles through the options fruitlessly. It’s no victimless crime; Kageyama’s shame and the flow of blood into his arm is at risk.

He considers himself a fairly early riser, all things considered. He adheres to a fairly strict schedule, and his body respects the consistency. Hopefully, he’s one of the first, if not _the_ first to wake up, and no one else has seen this sorry scene. God, he prays that he’s the only one awake.

...Wait, Hinata is drooling. That’s the last straw.

Kageyama shakes his arm back and forth, each minute movement sending a fresh smattering of pinpricks through the appendage. “Hinata. _Hinata_ ,” he hisses, hushed. The morning is quiet and he’s doing his best not to disturb the rest of his team. He worries his jostling, slight as it may be, is loud enough, even with the fan. “Wake up.”

“Mmph… Huh?” Weary, Hinata’s soft voice comes. “Kageyama, I was almost ready to wake up… Why’d you have to...” He trails off, indistinct beyond that.

A certain type of tiredness slurs his words in a captivating way Kageyama doesn’t have the time to fixate upon. “Get off me,” he commands.

“Get off you…? Wh…”

It seems then that he chooses to realize the position the two of them are in. In a flash, his eyes fly as wide as twin moons, and then -- and this was the part that Kageyama wasn’t expecting -- he goes an adorable cherry red.

“Huh? Kageyama? What did you do?” he exclaims.

“Be quiet!”

Hinata’s mouth opens and closes, like a fish.

“What do you mean, _what did I do?_ You’re the one who rolled onto my arm!”

“I move in my sleep! Give me a break!”

“I can’t feel it!”

“That seems like a you problem.”

Kageyama glares at Hinata, his chest too excited with anxiety and agitation and dumb crush feelings to respond to his inane jab. “Get off me,” he repeats. “Do you want to wake up the whole team?”

Hinata returns his expression with a glower of his own, but it looks less than intimidating coming from him. He tries to shuffle off, to no avail.

“...You have to let go of my hand.”

“Oh.” Having the decency to look at least a little embarrassed, Hinata releases him, and Kageyama suddenly understands what he meant when he was complaining about it being cold the night before. He returns to his sleeping bag, which he had half-fallen out of (and _who_ was the chilly one, again?), and gives Kageyama a rueful look. “Happy?” 

Kageyama twists his static arm experimentally. “Very,” he responds, voice teeming with sarcasm.

Hinata bares his teeth at him in an exaggerated growl. “ _Very,_ ” he parrots. “Anyways, thanks, I guess.” His abrasiveness peters off. “You’re warm.”

_You’re warm. You’re warm._

It’s not a compliment. It’s barely a neutral statement. But still.

Hinata was holding onto him for the _entire night._ He was asleep on top of Kageyama! Just on his arm, but even so, on his arm is enough of a breach in personal boundaries. And now, he was saying he’s warm! That he was conscious of the way his body felt beneath him!

It’s all far too much for this early in the morning.

_You’re warm._

“Weh! Why are you staring at me like that?” Hinata shrinks back.

Shit.

“I’m-- not staring at you,” Kageyama replies, stilted. Hinata’s forehead wrinkles.

“Uh…”

Kageyama pulls himself into a sitting position, dragging his eyes from Hinata. “I’m gonna get ready for the day.”

Hinata’s confusion evaporates into thin air, replaced instead with bright anticipation. “Oh! Me too!” Weirdness of cuddling a totally platonic friend forgotten, he shoots upwards with renewed vigor to take on the day. “I gotta be my best! You too, Kageyama, alright?”

“Obviously,” Kageyama says, stretching his arms high above his head, interlocking his fingers and tipping himself to the side. The movement purges his muscles of any lingering vestiges of sleepiness, and he relishes in the light strain. His shirt gets caught on his shoulders and tugs up his abdomen a little, at which point he notices Hinata’s gaze on him, eyes round and everything. “...What?”

“Nothing!” He replies quickly, hopping to his feet. “First one to change wins!”

Kageyama prays that they two of them haven’t woken up their teammates as he gets up. “You’re not beating me!”

The two of them pluck through the sleeping (or half-asleep, or pretending to be asleep and secretly listening to them; Kageyama dreads the thought) bodies of the Karasuno team, and then chase each other through the halls and into the bathrooms.

(Kageyama wins.)

-

They don’t get to go to the Interhigh.

Dateko wins with the same unwavering grit, tenacity, and blocking power they’ve paraded since the first time Kageyama met them. It wasn’t an easy win, but it was one that was undoubtedly well-deserved. Kageyama feels like he’s floating, in an amoeba, gelatin-like way. This is when he should feel the most grounded, but part of him escapes into the ether, and he stares into the too bright ceiling lamps that threaten to wash him out of existence.

“Come on, Kageyama,” Hinata says, pulling at his wrist.

“...Right.”

There’s no time to despair. 

Their team bows to the audience, exchanges well-wishes with Dateko (Hinata’s watery smile sends another stab through him), and makes their way stoically out of the gym. He can hear some of the first years crying behind them, being led by Tanaka and Kinoshita. Ukai walks in front of them, head held high and proud in the face of their loss.

Hinata trods beside Kageyama, their sides nearly touching. Kageyama regards him closely.

He hiccups.

Kageyama lets Hinata press into him. Because this is beyond teasing, or crushing, or petty arguments. Beyond the heat burning behind his own eyes. He doesn't say anything when tears leak through his jersey and into his shoulder. He just wraps a protective arm around him, because this time, it's beyond words.

He knows what’s going through his head.

There's nothing Kageyama can do for him, do to absolve the shattering contradiction of frustration and pride and sorrow welling within all of them, but this.

So he does.

-

When Hinata holds his hand after their first practice, post-loss, he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t scrunch up his face or cajole him, Hinata’s hand slides easily into his and they go about their conversation politely ignoring the elephant in the room.

Something… changes.

Of course, in the back of his mind, Kageyama has always had a vague awareness that Hinata does what he does just because… That’s who he is. With the touching, Kageyama’s not the only person on the team to receive that kind of treatment, but he’s definitely the one who catches the brunt of it. Ever since Sugawara told him about love languages or what have you, the concept that Hinata is showing that he likes (or tolerates) him has been poking around.

Didn’t mean he didn’t get embarrassed, though.

After the moment they shared, though, in that yawning, dreary hallway, where he held Hinata, it was then that he finally realizes that he’s not just showing affection, it’s how he desires comfort. When Hinata cried into him, he was finally betraying the trust he held for Kageyama, outside of the game. He wasn’t afraid to show emotion -- far from it -- but the fact that he was so open and honest with _Kageyama_ made his heart stutter a little.

If he likes Hinata -- truly likes him, truly means what he thinks when he toys with the idea of kissing him, that means he should be receptive, right? Things don’t have to change too much-- he can maintain their relationship, their _normal_ relationship, even if he lets this happen, right?

And, undeniably, he’s sensed a new emotion growing inside him, another troublesome one falling in tandem with the other crush-related delusions; it’s something he recognizes as being akin to protectiveness. Within him, he’s developed an inexplicable desire to keep Hinata safe, it’s a type of _worry,_ personal worry, that he’d never harboured for someone else in quite the same way. 

He’s not just concerned over Hinata’s physical condition, nor his mental state in the middle of a game, where he has control, it’s in situations where he has _no power --_ his emotional wellbeing.

Kageyama doesn’t conduct feelings. He can’t set positivity into Hinata’s palm. In fact, this newfound matter he’s found himself entangled in has been giving him a rough time.

But he really doesn’t like to see Hinata upset.

And this is what he can do.

-

“Didn’t think ya could get th’ best of us this time, Tobio-kun, huh?”

Miya jeers at Kageyama through the net, one hand on his hip, chin angled upwards in a slightly high and mighty way. Kageyama swallows his self-pity and his anger as they exchange a handshake. “No, I wasn’t expecting an easy game. Your team had the better six,” he replies simply. Miya’s self-righteous grin contorts into that of a disbelieving frown.

“God, even in defeat, yer a good kid.” His lip curls. “Makes me sick.”

“Er… My bad.”

Miya waves his newly-freed hand. “Don’t.” His expression shifts immediately as he turns to Hinata. “You were great, Shouyou-kun. That receive o’ yers on ‘Samu’s spike right there at the end nearly put me in tears.”

Sweaty, exhausted, but positively beaming at the praise, Hinata pumps his fists. “Thanks, um, Atsumu-san!” He pushes one fist forward and knocks it against Miya’s. “Your serves are even better than the last time we played!”

Laughing carelessly, Miya shrugs. “I sure hope so! Yers aren’t too bad yerself.”

“Th-Thanks!”

Seeing Hinata flush with pride over Miya’s praise causes Kageyama’s stomach to sink like a rock in water. He doesn’t know if Miya is leaning froward with an interested gaze on purpose or not, but he does know that the jealousy burning a hole inside him is only compounding the soreness over their loss.

He places a hand on Hinata’s shoulder. “Well, we need to get back to our team. Nice playing you again, Miya-san.”

“Likewise.”

“Kageyama, I was talking to Atsumu-san--”

 _Not anymore._ The thought comes so urgently it frightens him, and his heart stutters.

Is this what he’s become? Possessive over some boy who doesn’t know he wants him? Hot shame crawls up his spine.

“S’alright, Shouyou-kun, Tobio-kun’s right. We’ll chat later,” Atsumu says amicably. When Kageyama starts to steer Hinata away, he calls out again. “One thing, though, Tobio-kun,” he adds as Hinata starts off.

“What is it?”

“Don’t be such a stick in th’ mud, ‘kay?” he smiles wanly. “Later days.”

“Um, alright.”

He trails after Hinata, wondering what exactly Miya meant by that. He’s known since meeting him tjat he doesn’t seem to like him much, for whatever reason. He doesn’t harbour any ill will for his opponent, so it’s far from mutual.

That’s when the panic sets in.

Could Miya know?

How is that _possible?_

Kageyama was so thorough, so careful in the way he responded to Hinata during the game. Not to let anyone in, let anyone see the cacophonous symphony conducted in his head at all times. He knows Miya is smart; that’s what makes him such a good player.

But how?

And if he does, does that mean anyone else could, too?

He nearly ascends right then and there.

“Damn… Inarizaki is really good,” Hinata curses as Kageyama catches up with him. “Super good. Crazy good.”

Ennoshita and Tanaka are consoling the first years when they rejoin the group. Nishinoya is balancing a water bottle on his head. Kinoshita and Narita are speaking quietly with Yamaguchi, Yachi hands Tsukishima a towel, and Kageyama and Hinata are stone-faced, hiding their disappointment in themselves.

“Yeah, they are.”

They won last year, so maybe, just maybe, a niggling part of Kageyama’s brain thought they could steal it out from under them again. But he was a fool to go in with any preconceived notions. A team is not the same team they were last year. Karasuno is not the same team they were yesterday.

They did everything they could, and yet, Inarizaki were just a little better, a little tighter. And the flame in Kageyama burns a little brighter with the desire to _win._

“I wanna play Atsumu-san and Osamu-san again. And Aran-san. And everyone. I want to beat them again,” Hinata decrees.

“It’s Miya-san’s last year,” Kageyama reminds him.

“Not of his life.”

They exchange glances.

“You’re right.”

Hinata smirks. “I often am!”

He dodges out of Kageyama’s swing. “Yeah, sure.”

Karasuno leaves the gym with heads held in a facsimile of their pride. When out of the eyes of the watchers, though, the image wears off, the colours dull, they fracture. 

Hinata’s hand slides into Kageyama’s, and he squeezes it tight.

-

The evening sky swirls and spreads above, and Kageyama is spending his first free day of his third year with Hinata.

He couldn’t imagine this when they first met.

Rest, self care, and personal maintenance are as important for an athlete as training and playing. As a rule, Kageyama has one day where he lets his body simply be as is, to repair and restore, with light stretching and a less strenuous workout. Sundays have, naturally, become that for him, and he chooses to spend the last few hours of it with Hinata.

Munching happily on a meatbun, Hinata picks about in a sweater and track pants a little bit in front of him. It may be April, but winter still clings stubbornly in the wind, and as the sun sinks into oblivion, it only gets chillier. The breeze ruffles Hinata’s hair as he plucks along.

“Thanks for the food, Kageyama,” he says, looking backwards. Kageyama quickens to catch him.

“Yeah.” As per their last bet regarding some blocking exercises, Kageyama acquiesced and bought them both dinner. Now, satiated for the time being, Hinata is behaving pleasantly mildly.

Walking the streets with Hinata like this is… weird. There’s no pretense of practice, the two of them just decided to hang out with each other. Kageyama even got them food -- it feels like (be still, his beating heart) they’re on some kind of date.

His chest squeezes.

“Here, come this way.” Hinata hops a metal barrier at the edge of the road and trails down a grassy slope, arms outstretched like he’s walking a balancing beam. At the bottom of the hill, he plunks down, legs splayed out in front of him. Kageyama follows suit, sitting a little more conservatively.

“So, thoughts on that first year setter? Shiina?” Hinata asks, tipping his head to his shoulder.

“It means we’ll have a setter when we’re gone next year, so that’s good.”

“That’s not what I meant. Ya think his skills are up to snuff?”

Kageyama ponders that. Shiina is respectable -- a little uncertain of himself, but talented nonetheless. He keeps a steady head and has quick reflexes. “There’s a lot to learn, but he’s far from bad.”

“Of course. We can’t all be Kageyama Tobio, after all,” Hinata hums. Kageyama looks down at his feet. He knows that his friend is just trying to make fun of him, but his words, coupled with the lack of sarcasm in his voice, still makes his stomach flip.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s a compliment, d’oy.” Hinata flicks his temple. He wiggles his feet. “Jeez, why can’t it be warmer out? It’s almost May.”

“It’s late out.” Kageyama puts his arms around his knees and hunches forward as Hinata finally finishes his bun and tucks the wrapper in his pocket, pressing his hands into the grass behind him. Kageyama has a sneaking suspicion where this conversation is going.

“It’s not _that_ late,” Hinata points out, indicating the sunset. Oranges similar to Hinata’s hair shoot out in the sky, and deep, brilliant reds and golds drift past, the clouds set on fire by the streaking sun. He rubs his arms. “Sun’s not down yet.”

“It’s probably fifteen degrees,” Kageyama posits.

“More like five.” Hinata looks around. There’s really no one except for them, and the average person walking along the road wouldn’t be able to see them unless they came to the edge and looked down. It’s just Hinata and Kageyama, the spring chill, and the melted sky.

His gaze turns instead to Kageyama. “Here, come closer.”

There’s the rub. They’re really doing this, aren’t they.

Sighing to mourn his relent, Kageyama scoots over an inch or two. Nothing surprises him anymore, he’s been conditioned. Cheered, Hinata nestles himself into his shoulder, and it’s too much.

Kageyama had hoped -- in futility -- that his feelings for Hinata would dissipate if he kept things like he always did. Played his part. Didn’t ask for more. Unfortunately for the involved parties, the opposite happened, and all he’s gotten for his hard work is more intensity, growing deep within his bones. The team initially gave them bizarre looks whenever Hinata would do something affectionate, but it’s become so commonplace that they don’t even bat an eye at hand holding anymore.

This is so much different.

This isn’t bickering over plays and formations while they just _happen_ to be holding hands, this is Hinata, snuggled into his side like they’re on a date, like he’s Kageyama’s boyfriend, for God’s sake, and it’s not doing anything for him -- not like what it’s doing to Kageyama.

It’s driving him up the wall.

Lately, Kageyama’s self-control, the rational side of him he’s deferred to presiding over his crush, has been dwindling with respect to the sheer ferocity of his feelings for Hinata, and it’s not as if there’s only romantic ones in there; all of his confusion, stress, and anger relating to the boy is mixed up in there, too, and it all feels like it’s going to burst one day, from a body big enough to play volleyball, but too small to hold these overflowing emotions.

He doesn’t want that to happen. In fact, he can’t let it happen.

Over their time together, Kageyama has shown more vulnerability to Karasuno and to Hinata than he’s ever shown to any previous teammates, but this would be a step too far. Baring himself could change everything, it could cause a fissure to form between himself and Hinata.

Kageyama hates to stagnate in all other aspects of his life, but here, he can’t figure out a solution where he moves forward.

But even so, the idea of progressing with this mess trapped inside of him is less than ideal.

Kageyama wants to be with Hinata -- he wants to kiss him and touch him and do a whole slew of other embarrassing things that he’s not thinking about for the sake of his sanity. That desire looms over him, eager to reveal itself whenever Hinata does something like this, but Hinata’s just having _fun._ This is how he communicates. This is how he’s come to interact with Kageyama. It’s normal for him. It’s safe for him.

It is not safe for Kageyama, whose heart threatens to leak out of his throat and into his words.

He’ll screw up if he doesn’t take the same kind of precise, meticulous control of the situation like he can on the court.

Rationalizing, working, responding to these feelings, that’s volleyball. Accepting and reacting are all things he learned through the game.

But he doesn’t get to pick and choose how he feels.

“You should have worn a coat,” Kageyama comments as if every organ inside him isn’t on edge.

“But I looked outside and it was still sunny so I thought…” God, his voice reverberates and it sends more chills through Kageyama than the (admittedly) crisp weather.

“So you left, noticed it was cold, and refused to go back?”

“No! No…” One comes out with fervor, and the other sounds like a confession. “It wasn’t that cold when I left!” he adds defensively.

“Why don’t you get up and run in circles, then?” suggests Kageyama. He really does like how Hinata feels against his body, but it’s dangerous.

“Uh… Cuz…” Hinata waffles for some reason. “I actually just went on a super-tiring run before this. Like all around the city.”

“And that changes?” Hinata could run the length of the equator and not be tired. He puffs out his cheeks.

“It… Ugh! Don’t worry about it, alright?” he says, exasperated.

“Uh, alright…” Kageyama thinks he’s gotten really good at deciphering the things Hinata won’t say, but here he’s at a loss. Hinata never passes up an opportunity to run around like an idiot. “Weirdo.”

“You’re the weird one,” Hinata huffs.

Kageyama tries to shake his head, but he can’t, because Hinata is right there.

There’s a lull in the conversation, and Kageyama, presently, flounders around in his mind for something to spurt out, anything to distract him from the reality he’s living, Hinata’s head tucked into his neck. The silence doesn’t feel awkward, perse, but the nerves fluttering in his stomach make it out to be. A flock of white birds pass overhead, and Hinata’s breathing slows his.

It’s him who puts an end to the silence. “It’s our last year,” he says in a solemn tone that Kageyama wasn’t expecting.

Kageyama squints at the sun. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to miss Karasuno,” Hinata admits, in a breathy manner of speaking. “I never would’ve gotten any good if I didn’t come here.”

“Don’t think you can stop practicing.”

“Well, obviously.”

Another pause.

Everything inside Kageyama is screaming. Screaming to tell Hinata how he feels, screaming to turn towards him and kiss him right now, screaming to say he’ll miss Karasuno, too, but what he’ll miss most is Hinata, who’ll be in Brazil. Kageyama doesn’t even know where Brazil is, and his heart’ll be there.

He doesn’t say a word.

“What about you, Kageyama?”

There’s a tinge of softness to his words that Kageyama can’t help focusing on. “Me, too.”

“Huh? Really?”

“What do you mean, really? Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, I guess I thought… You wouldn’t think for a second, you’d just keep going even further.”

That part’s true, at least. Kageyama doesn’t plan on slowing down, but that doesn’t mean any of the time he spent at Karasuno was for nought. All the time he spent learning, growing, it’s all important to him -- far more important than he ever could have expected it to be.

The people he met, the life he lived, will all stick with him, and it has him feeling a little wistful. He can’t stay in high school forever, and it’s not like he wants to, but he has the sense that part of him will always belong to this school, this team, Hinata.

“I mean, yeah.”

“Could it be, Kageyama?” Hinata gasps exaggeratedly. “You like us? You think of us all as friends?”

Kageyama’s jaw tenses, and he glances to the side. “What of it?” he demands.

“I’m-- I’m so proud!” Hinata nuzzles further into him, and Kageyama goes red in the face.

“Alright, quit it!”

“You’ve grown up so much!”

Kageyama pushes him away as he flails, eyes shining with crocodile tears. “Stuff it,” he commands. Hinata boings back into a sitting position like some type of jovial training dummy, and Kageyama can finally breathe easy for the few moments they’re not pressed together.

“It’s not like it’s the last time we’ll be seeing each other, though.” Hinata stretches. “We’ve got a whoooole year left. And beyond that.”

Kageyama takes him in. “You said you’d stand on the same stage as me.”

Hinata sticks his nose in the air. “And I will! I’ll come back from Rio, and then I’ll kick your ass!”

“Not if I kick yours first.”

The confidence inspired on Hinata’s face has become one of his favourite things. “You’ll see!” he promises.

The sun slinks down into the horizon, slowly and with purpose, and the red sunlight dies on Hinata’s face. 

“I’m really glad I was here,” he murmurs. “With you.”

_I’m really glad I was here with you._

_I’m really glad._

_I was here._

_With._

_You._

Hinata’s eyes are a radiant gold in the wavering rays of light, a careful piece of art against the grass and treetops brushed with the incandescent paint of the sunset. His hair stifles the cool wind, and for one picturesque moment, the world stops spinning.

Then realization dawns on Hinata’s face.

He goes pink from chin to hairline, another colour joining the fun of the evening sky’s dance. “Um! Uh! I mean!” he babbles incoherently. “Playing volleyball! With you! I liked doing that!”

Kageyama blinks rapidly, sure his face has flustered a similar shade. “Uh, yeah. Me too, I guess.”

“Not going to school with you and everything! The volleyball! That was fun!”

“Yeah! Obviously…”

“I guess doing stuff like this is nice, too-- I mean, it’s alright, but, uh, uh,” Hinata’s face only brightens as he continues to cover himself up. “Don’t forget, I’m gonna be the one who takes you down! Just me! Okay?”

“And, like I said, I’m not gonna let you!”

“Alright!”

“Okay!”

Hinata’s face purses up and he slams his head aggressively back into Kageyama’s shoulder. “Cool, then!”

Kageyama feels like he’s about to _explode._ Magma is rising in his body, too hot to survive in, and he knows at any moment he’ll crack and overflow. Every cell is teeter-tottering, uneasy and uncertain, floating around in space, unsure of what they’re supposed to be. In fact, he himself wouldn’t be convinced he was a real person if it weren’t for Hinata's hot face against his body and his rapid, singing heartbeat.

Hinata just said he was _glad_ to be with him.

His mind kind of tuned out the rest, because Hinata’ words, spoken in that low, gentle tone, are sure getting fucking exhausted running laps in there. He was glad. He was glad!

Despite his body going hot, and then cold, and then settling for an indistinct fuzziness, he can’t move a muscle, he can barely breathe, if he’s being honest. He’s rock solid, an immovable object, pin-straight beneath Hinata’s touch. If he shifts, if he opens his mouth one more time, everything is going to spill. Everything is going to get revealed, and Hinata, who was glad to be with him, won’t be anymore.

He’ll push him away, twist his face in disgust, because he never thought a machine could love.

But, for the first time, something creeps into his self-deprecating thoughts: doubt.

Is that something Hinata would really do?

Earnest, hardworking, smiling Hinata? Does he even have that in him? That type of derisiveness, that malicious demeanor… would he even be capable of being so vicious?

He can’t think straight -- well, he never has. Besides that, Hinata’s face, the same face which has haunted Kageyama’s dreams for months now, is his reality. The image is seared into his memories, and the sky doesn’t look quite right without him in it. He can’t believe he just had that conversation. He can’t believe Hinata just said that to him!

He’d say he feels like a giddy schoolboy again, if one he ever was.

“Hinata,” he says finally, when saliva has returned to his mouth and his voice to his larynx. “What are you doing?”

“Stealing your energy.” Hinata says between the stitches of Kageyama’s sweater.

“What? No. Don’t do that.” Kageyama grabs Hinata’s collar and thrusts him away, and, ah.

He’s still rather pastel.

“Too bad, Kageyama.” He giggles -- really! Hinata giggles! -- and his irises spark. “I’ve already absorbed so much.”

It’s dumb, it’s completely nonsensical, it’s so Hinata.

The two keep chattering and bickering until the sun really and truly dips behind the trees and buildings that make up the horizon line, orange fades to royal hues of purple, and the chill in the air kicks up a few notches.

Kageyama ought to be getting home. Hinata, too -- he has a long bike ride up the mountain, and in the dark, Kageyama can’t help but worry for his safety, if even the tiniest bit. But as night stretches over them (really, it’s not too late, it’s April, the sun sets at a respectable time), he can’t bring himself to move away as Hinata embraces him tighter on that grassy knoll. He can’t help but be swept up in the hurricane that is Hinata Shouyou, in all his idiocy and word vomit and adorable face.

It doesn’t really matter to him, for that fleeting Sunday night, that Hinata isn’t, and won’t be, into him. Because Hinata told him he was glad to be with him.

Kageyama didn’t know what loneliness meant until he met Hinata, and he never let him fall back into it again.

He’s glad to be with Hinata, too.

-

If anyone out there is looking to patent and develop a memory wiping device, Tsukishima is willing to provide as much money as possible. If modern science can create a machine which is able to selectively delete certain memories rattling around in his unfortunate brain, he would do anything. Many experiences with his teammates had been regrettable, but he feels as if when Kageyama or Hinata (or both, God forbid) are present, the “penchant to regret” factor raises.

Such is the case now.

Tsukishima really does wonder where the Hell Hinata got off acting like a child every day of his life. Similarly, he wonders what goes on in that head of his to be so embarrassing. Tsukishima is ashamed to be associated with him as a member of the Karasuno Volleyball Club.

Oh, how desperately he wants Coach Ukai to put a stop to things.

“So, Seiya, Hinata, your objectives will be to bait the blockers as far to the end of the net as possible,” Kageyama explains. He’s holding one of the whiteboards with positions drawn up on it, explaining a strategy in the curt fashion he always affects. They’re discussing their practice match with Dateko they have the next day, which, as is expected, Kageyama treats with as much sobriety as a real game. 

“Okay!” comes Seiya’s determined call.

“Got it,” Hinata responds.

Now, Hinata replying when someone addresses him? Not particularly odd. The issue here was that Hinata had the audacity to take up residence in Kageyama’s lap as he was giving this rundown.

Sure, Hinata is touchy-feely. Tsukishima has known this since their first year -- it’s one of many annoying traits in the list he keeps having to append. This especially shows through when he’s near Kageyama, and he, more often than not, is draped over his setter in some dramatic fashion. He is uncertain as to whether Hinata started treating him in such a way ironically, and frankly, he doesn’t care. His problem with the concept was that he was subjected to it and he _couldn’t get away._

Whatever the pair do in their free time is up to them. Tsukishima doesn’t like to spend much time cogitating over it; he keeps his sanity that way. When they’re in practice together? That’s a horse of a different colour, and Tsukishima considers it an assault on the senses.

The fact that the second and first years have come to expect it makes it all the more unfortunate. His one respite is Yachi, who still colours in the cheeks any time they pull this sort of tomfoolery, and is the only way he manages to remain certain he is not going hysterical.

Even worse, Hinata is completely casual about it. He’s attentively listening to everything Kageyama is explaining, and pays rapt attention to Yamaguchi and Coach Ukai when they give their pieces, as if this is a normal situation. It drives Tsukishima batty. He can’t even relish in the schadenfreude he used to be privy to, as Kageyama no longer dissolves into a miserable puddle of shame when this sort of thing happens. It appears he’s simply accepted the reality that Hinata throws himself onto him whenever possible as par for the course.

He, distantly, wonders how Yamaguchi’s betting pool is going. Traditionally, leadership of the pool was passed down from vice captain to vice captain, but seeing as Kageyama happened to be filling that position for the current team, Yamaguchi found himself heading it.

Tsukishima cannot _believe_ he’s wasting time thinking about this.

“That’s all,” Coach Ukai commands, taking the focus away from Kageyama and his orange koala. “Any questions?”

“No, sir!” the team responds in unison.

“Let’s get to cleaning up, then,” he says, clapping his hands.

“Yes!”

Hinata springs up out of Kageyama’s lap and enthusiastically runs to go sweep up balls that settled on the outside of the court. Tsukishima stands slowly to attend to his water bottle, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Can you make that illegal?” he mutters under his breath, his inquiry directed at the boy standing next to him.

Yamaguchi shrugs. “At this point, I think it might be a competition between them. Like, _if you freak out when I get all cuddly, you owe me a week’s supply of yogurt,_ and Kageyama probably said, _bring it on, dumbass._ ”

“You know them so well.”

“It’s all part of the job,” Yamaguchi says, with a breathy, tired laugh. “You don’t think it’s a _little_ endearing?”

“Not in a million years,” Tsukishima deadpans.

“I don’t know.” Yamaguchi shirks off his practice pinny. “I think it would be nice, having someone be so unapologetically in love with you.”

Tsukishima’s eyes narrow. “Are you trying to insinuate something?”

A soft smile crosses Yamaguchi’s mouth. “Not in a million years,” he parrots. 

A heavy sigh comes from Tsukishima’s lips, but even he cannot keep amusement out of his words. “Can it.”

“Sorry, Tsukki.” He stopped meaning that a while ago.

Tsukishima watches Hinata plunk the gathered volleyballs into the ball bin with as much grace as one could expect out of him-- meaning, he picked up too many and they all flow unceremoniously out of his grip as he attempts to make it out to seem this was part of his plan all along. He seems to have enthralled a first year. Of course; the Greatest Decoy of Karasuno was popular amongst their kouhai. Tsukishima stopped being bitter over this a long time ago, and instead relished the fact that he wasn’t fawned over to the same extent.

He takes a swig of his water bottle as Yachi and their other manager, Katsuta, hand out towels, and thanks whatever entity is watching over them that Hinata can’t be a ball boy and piggyback simultaneously.

-

Top three in the nation.

Karasuno has just lost to Itachiyama, but no one can take away that victory.

Kageyama’d be a fool to not notice the disappointment, heavy and stagnating, that spreads from his chest and pervades through the rest of him like noxious gas. At the same time, undeniable pride makes its home in his overworked heart, in the sweat that makes his jersey cling to him, in his slight smile that crosses his lips despite their circumstances.

“Centre court,” Hinata breathes, dazed but not uncertain. “We finally made it.”

“...Yeah. We did.”

Hinata’s smile aches his muscles more than any volleyball game could ever dream to, and he wonders, distantly, when exactly that came to be.Was it before or after that night in their second year, or was it only now, his genuine ecstatic frenzy waning into something softer, contemplative, that solidified this twinge, this incredible tug? This pride? This frustration?

Hinata’s uneven steps close the short distance between them. “We did it together. You, me, everyone else.”

Oh, how he soars inside. “Are you mad we lost?”

“Of course.”

He approaches.

“I’m pissed.”

And he collapses into Kageyama. His hands come up near Kageyama’s shoulder blades, and he grips the fabric as hard as he can, pulling it away. In turn, Kageyama wraps his arms over his shoulders, pulling him in close, protectively, and Hinata buries himself in his chest.

Part of Kageyama thinks that he’s shielding Hinata from the prying eyes of the audience, the other part thinks he doesn’t need to do that at all. Thinking be damned, what he does know is that they’re _here._ On the orange court. They’re third in the nation, their _team,_ Kageyama’s team he’s spent three years playing with, has finally done it.

This same Spring will never come again. Warm air and flowering plants will slip into buzzing insects and wreathing humidity, and Kageyama won’t be around to see it, this glory of getting so far, the chagrin of not making the final stretch, those feelings will belong solely to their kouhai. He’s going to go further beyond. He’s never going to break.

But he’s never going to forget what he’s done at Karasuno-- he couldn’t, even if he wanted to.

He’s never going to forget the unparalleled high of his first quick attack with Hinata. He’s never going to forget the desolate pit in his stomach, the disparate sense of loss after Seijoh triumphed over them, nor the thrill when they pulled through and turned the tables in their second game. He’s never going to forget the fear and excitement struck into his heart simultaneously the first time he saw Ushijima’s spike up close and personal. He’s never going to forget how he and Hinata closed the curtain on their Inarizaki match, the moment the Battle At the Garbage Dump was brought to an end, the deafening bounce of the volleyball against their court, signifying Kamomedai’s win, his first Nationals with the team, cut short.

He’s never going to forget the feeling of Hinata pressed against him, crying tears not of anguish, of defeat, of resignation, but of determination and promise.

Karasuno may have lost here, but Kageyama doesn’t feel as hopeless as he once did.

Hinata is in his arms, and the team around him shares in their loss, is affected just as deeply as he, and he’s no longer alone.

He hasn’t been alone since Hinata stole into his life three years ago, tied a leash around his heart and called him his, hit every toss like the world would end the next second without a single hesitation.

And Kageyama thinks he loves him.

He doesn’t know which is scarier: how easily this comes to him, or how unsurprised he is.

-

The gym is quiet but the electricity that crackles in the air is nearly palpable.

The volleyball falls to where the setter would be standing had there been one in a perfect arc, and Hinata scrambles back into position, wearing a satisfied smirk. Ready and poised, he locks eyes with Kageyama.

Who smiles at him.

Hinata, dressed just like him in his uniform pants and button-up rolled up to his elbow, walks toward him with a self-assured stride, looking pretty pleased with his perfect receive. The light behind him is a warm, whitish glow that falls on him softly, casting shadows over his front. The rest of the gym, though empty save the two of them, is just the same -- homely, and familiar, swirling with protective oranges and browns. This place that Kageyama stepped into, alone and boiling with pride and resentment, has become as much of a part of him as volleyball, as his team, as the boy coming toward him.

He pauses when he comes toe to toe with Kageyama, less than a foot away. Even though he’s grown during their years at high school, he’s still a shrimp -- a shrimp with well-defined forearms Kageyama’s gaze falls to, but a shrimp nonetheless. Kageyama looks down at him.

He’s entirely too close, but Kageyama makes no effort to step away. He doesn’t want to, he can’t.

His eyes -- those bright eyes -- stare directly into Kageyama’s wordlessly. The boy aches.

“I’ll see you later, Kageyama,” he says softly. His hair, which has grown long enough that Kageyama would call it ratty if he didn’t secretly like the way it looked, curls around his face and ears, and falls out of place when he has to tip his head up to look at Kageyama.

Those words carry with them a promise. Hinata was going to cross oceans, go to the other side of the world, for two years. This isn’t an “I’ll see you later” shared between practices, where Kageyama would wake up and see him every morning. This was closer to a threat, the conviction etched into Hinata’s face a challenge, him telling Kageyama without saying it outright that if he even stops to catch his breath, he’ll catch up. There won’t be a single moment where he isn’t thinking, training, playing, getting better.

Hinata never wastes a day. Kageyama knows that -- oh God, does Kageyama ever know.

And he loves that. He loves it, he loves _him,_ and it scares him.

But he’s not afraid that Hinata won’t be with him. In two years’ time, he’ll return, endowed with the skills he learned on the beach. Kageyama can’t let up; not for himself, and not for Hinata. That ideal, that nagging thought in the back of his mind, to strive, to become the best, that’s where Hinata rests, even when they’re hours and hours and an unfathomable amount of miles apart.

If he starts missing him, it’ll be a disservice to everything they’ve worked for.

Hinata won’t be waiting around for him-- he’ll be expecting him.

“Yeah. I’ll see you later,” Kageyama breathes.

Hinata dithers; he looks down at his own feet and then back up into Kageyama’s face.

He rises up to his tiptoes.

And the world… well, Kageyama doesn’t know what the world does. It could dim, it could shatter, it could completely fall away, leaving only the wood panels beneath the two of them. For all he’s aware, the world could stay completely the same. The gym walls could stay that rich russet colour and the bars on the windows could remain weirdly cold to the touch despite the warmth of the room. He doesn’t know. That’s not what he’s focused on.

Because Hinata presses a very chaste, tentative kiss to his lips, and pulls away almost immediately.

He winks, cheeks all aflush. “Don’t go thinking you can forget I’ll be the one to beat you!”

Then he bolts. He spins around abruptly, and takes off through the entrance to the gym. He’s gone by the time Kageyama’s mind catches up to the present.

And what a catch up it is.

Kageyama goes about as bright red as a freshly boiled lobster. The steam rising off his rudied skin is almost tangible, and the gymnasium dwarfs his over six foot body in sheer oppressive tension. Sound dissipates, the inside of his head goes quiet. His entire body slows.

And then he starts screaming.

“What the _fuck?!_ ”

Inordinate amounts of time were spent in Kageyama’s room and classes, physical body present, mind somewhere out in space, imagining this exact scenario on repeat. And now that it’s happened, all in the span of what was probably a second but felt like an eternity, his soul may very well leave and never return. 

His fingers lift to his lips and gingerly puts weight on them, as if he can’t believe they’re real.

Hinata kissed him. He didn’t hallucinate that, he imagines the way his lips felt as he traces his own upper lip with a teasing touch that barely grazes his skin. Hinata kissed him. It was all in the blink of an eye, but he irrevocably did it. Hinata kissed him!

_Waitwaitwait, if Hinata kissed me, does that mean…?_

His legs almost give out below him.

Hours upon hours spent agonizing over Hinata, heartbeats that thrummed their off-key, uneven excuse for a melody, deliberate movements undertaken to stay under the radar, all unravel at the seams and flutter into stuffing and fabric at his feet. Every day he’s spent with Hinata over the years, every day since they first met in middle school, every day since he realized how deeply he had fallen, dissolve into nothingness.

The electric jolt he got at every touch, the hitch in his throat at skin-on-skin contact, the shame that made him feel like a monster, all escapes from his agape mouth.

Because Hinata kissed him!

All his brain manages to supply is: _he’s bad at it, like I thought._

The second comes in conjunction: _I want to help him get better._

 _Hinata kissed me!_ He’s smiling, bright and wide and kind of unnaturally for him, and it splits his cheeks in an unfamiliar but not unpleasant way. And he’s left, flummoxed, hands over his mouth, red as a beet. Hinata’s gone.

But not forever.

In between screaming thoughts and inclinations to become a blushing liquid, one with the floor, as his bones fill with jelly, he realizes what exactly Hinata has done to him. Kissed him in a way the romance dramas Miwa likes to watch would have scoffed at, and planned to fuck off to the other side of the world immediately thereafter.

That’s just like him. Selfish, unpredictable, and so, so alluring.

Once Kageyama adjusts and feels a little more like a real person, his fight returns to him, stronger, deeper, and impossibly more intense than before.

He’ll train. He’ll get ready for Hinata to come home.

And then he’ll demand an answer, and won’t take it simply in the form of words.

-

What they don’t tell you about crushing on your best friend for two years (or maybe three, who’s to say) and having him kiss you right before he leaves for a country thousands and thousands of miles away is the very physical pain he feels in his chest at night.

He closes his eyes, and imagines Hinata.

They text, they video call when their schedules match up enough (the twelve hour gap makes things a little difficult), so it’s not like they have no contact. But it’s not _enough._

(Hinata doesn’t mention kissing him; Kageyama didn’t expect him to.)

He misses Hinata. He doesn’t just miss playing with him, his voice, his smile, he misses things he never expected he would. His dumb little noises he makes when he gets excited. The way he touches his face like a maiden when he gets embarrassed. His touch. Oh God, does he miss his touch.

Nineteen years old and about to enter the world of Olympic athletes, Kageyama Tobio craves Hinata’s hand in his own with an unbelievable severity. Body on his own. Lips on his own. He rolls over onto his stomach and groans into his pillow.

He promised to himself that he wouldn’t miss Hinata. For both of their sakes’. But damn, as the paint on his walls dims and dulls with the shadows of the night, he can’t help but yearn.

It’s harder than he thought it would be.

And it’s not like he ever stops thinking about the kiss, either.

He wonders if anything would be different, if it would cushion the blow a little more, if Kageyama had simply told him how he felt. But therein lies the issue, right in the concept itself: nothing about how Kageyama feels is simple. It’s a tangled web of thoughts and actions and desires, and the words would never come out in a satisfying way, and mean everything he wanted them to.

Kageyama doesn’t know how love is supposed to feel. If it’s this, then it kind of sucks.

He scrolls through Hinata’s Instagram. He actually doesn’t post a lot (wouldn’t have expected that out of him), and he fixates on what pictures he’s posted since his arrival. He’s gotten tanner. He wears a hat and sunglasses more -- Kageyama doesn’t think he’s ever seen him in that get up in Miyagi.

Hinata is not a great cameraman, to his chagrin.

It drives him nuts that he’ll be in Rio for the Olympics, he’ll be in the _same_ damn city as Hinata, and he won’t be able to go see him. 

Well… It’s not like he _can’t_ _,_ but he definitely won’t.

That’s what he swore to him.

Doesn’t change the fact that he’s alone in his bed, and he thinks solely of what it would be like with Hinata here in his room with him. What would they do? What would they talk about? Would they even need words? Is Hinata getting any taller in Brazil?

Is he thinking of Kageyama in the same way, too?

His thumb hesitates over Hinata’s contact info. It’s morning over in Rio, so he would probably respond if he wasn’t busy.

But.

Ever since that kiss in the gymnasium, all the swooping fears of unrequited affection have gone and been replaced with enough anticipation to make him sick. What will happen the next time he sees Hinata in person. What it all means. Whether Hinata wants him as badly as he wants him.

Whether he’s missing him like this, too. 

“Aughhh,” he groans into his bedsheets.

It’s too late to do anything about his excited stomach.

Tomorrow, he’s going to give the day 50% more effort on top of his regular 120%. If he can’t do anything about these jumbled-up emotions (a fact he’s long since accepted), he can channel them into something a little more effective.

He can’t have _Hinata_ actually surpassing him, after all.

-

(Maybe he’d be a little comforted if he knew Hinata looked down at his hand and ached for him, too.)

-

Hinata’s heart is too big for his body.

3-1, their favour. The MSBY Black Jackals have won against the Schweiden Adlers.

Like a butterfly in a windstorm, he floats gently to the ground, walking on clouds.

And the audience erupts into raucous applause. He hears screams from the former members of Karasuno, of people he met and played in high school, of people he doesn’t even know, who came to see him and his team play, who came to see him standing on top of the world.

Bokuto hoots and hollers as he descends from his spike, and Hinata locks eyes with Kageyama from across the net, still in a dreamy state, feeling well and truly invincible. Like not a thing could touch him -- he’s red hot, a blazing shooting star.

And the expression on Kageyama’s face only elevates his mood.

Because, jeez, every part of the way he looks sends off fireworks in Hinata’s brain. Sweat-slicked, and smiling brighter than Hinata has _ever_ seen. Boom, boom, boom! The explosions are relentless, and Kageyama actually looks _so happy,_ his heart swells even more, and, oh no, it’s actually going to burst out of his chest if this continues.

He made it. _They_ made it.

Hinata is finally home -- and he doesn’t just mean in this Sendai arena, or in Japan. The piece of him that stayed behind with Kageyama has returned to him, and he’s whole and riding high and thinking about how he kissed the glowing, gorgeous man in front of him so many years ago, and just how much he meant it as his insurance.

He knows he was once Karasuno’s shrimpy middle blocker, standing on the court by the merit of some crazy awesome setter, rather than his own. He was one part of a set, a prospect he once despised, and now he grins so widely it hurts at his other half, whom he’s defeated.

Whom he gets to stay on this court longer than. 

Finally.

He was pretty sure that Kageyama thought of him as a friend. Close to 100%. But he wants more. He kissed Kageyama because he didn’t want him to forget everything that they did, how much he changed him down to his very core. He wanted Kageyama’s attention, his headspace, for him to keep watching him with those nostalgiac blue eyes of him.

He guesses he wanted Kageyama’s thoughts all to himself.

He hopes it worked.

The words of the commentators, the praise of the audience, all garbles together as Kageyama lifts the net and steps under it to stand right in front of him. He’s so _big_ \-- well, he always has been from Hinata’s perspective. But he’s gotten more muscular, he fills out his jersey in a way Hinata stares at like a dumbstruck idiot. 

Physicality aside, Kageyama is still smiling! Hinata thinks he can count the amount of times he saw him smile so genuinely in high school on one hand, but from the moment he saw him in the hallway, his smile to frown ratio is at least 2:1; he doesn’t really know, he didn’t pay too much attention in math. Vitality crashes off of him in waves, he’s filled to the brink with energy and exhilaration, and Hinata thinks he’s a little more than beautiful with his hair clinging to his forehead and his heavy, haggard breaths. He truly was a sight to behold in more ways than one.

_You mean you’ll stand on the same stage as me in the future?_

_That’s right. I will definitely be the one to defeat you! Whether it be ten years from now, or twenty, however long it takes!_

“You’re here,” Kageyama says. It’s not a question.

“I’m here.”

Anyone can guess what happens next.

Hinata jumps up, he scrabbles for Kageyama’s broad shoulders, and Kageyama’s arms secure him to his body, close and urgent. He wraps his legs around his opponent, his friend, his love’s abdomen and drives his face into the nook between his neck and his shoulder.

He’s sure their teams and the audience are watching, but he doesn’t care. He’s been waiting for this with every fibre of his being.

He breathes in all of Kageyama -- his pride, his frustration, his sweat, well, mostly his sweat. His deodorant, or his cologne, or whatever, is a familiar, safe musky scent, subtle but powerful, and Hinata doesn’t want to let go. He wonders if it’s possible to play volleyball in this kind of position. He wiggles his toes experimentally. He can still receive the ball with them.

For now, though, he takes in the man in whatever way he can. He holds him like he’ll fade if he lets go, memorizes the solidity of his chest against his own, imagines just grabbing his face and kissing him right now, see the shock and awe in his pretty face when he pulls away.

He doesn’t though. Not now.

He wants that all to himself.

“I missed you,” he murmurs honestly.

“Yeah?” Kageyama says in a voice that almost causes him to cease existing. “Me, too.”

“I kicked your ass like I promised.”

“You didn’t kick my ass.”

“Pretty sure I did.”

Hinata draws away, arms around Kageyama’s neck. He stares into the other’s eyes, which are blazing with determination. “That makes 1096 wins for me.”

“Oh, piss off, I’m still winning,” Kageyama admonishes.

“Not for long!”

“Alright, alright, children, yer exhausting.” That’s Atsumu, coming up behind him. “Ya can spend as much time with Tobio-kun as ya want later, Shou-kun, we got some business to attend to.”

“Did you guys really play each other that much?” Bokuto asks, face blank.

“It’s just a tally since high school,” Hinata says as he (reluctantly) gets down.

“A tally! I never thought of doing that.” Bokuto’s face lights up. “I wonder if Akaashi remembers how many games I’ve played.”

“Sure he does, bud.” Atsumu is about to start carting off the two of them, but Kageyama grabs Hinata’s collar first and he whirls back around.

“What?” he asks.

Kageyama’s gaze is now averted. “Are you doing anything tonight?”

Like a deer caught in the headlights, Hinata blanches momentarily. “Um, maybe?” he turns back to Atsumu. “Atsumu-san, are we doing anything?”

Without even looking at them, he waves his hand. “Go celebrate with Tobio-kun. Everyone’ll understand, sure.”

“Oh. Okay.” Hinata blinks at Kageyama. “Nope.”

Suddenly looking shy, he says “well, I’ll text you.”

“Sick,” Hinata responds, because he has no other idea what to say. Then he jogs back over to Atsumu and Bokuto, not waiting for a reply.

Atsumu side-eyes him when he falls into step. “Why him, Shou-kun?” he asks, and Hinata looks up at him, confused.

“Huh? Well, we haven’t seen each other in a couple years,” he says. Atsumu pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Kids these days…” That seems unrelated.

“I’m only a year younger than you!” Hinata objects.

In place of a response, Atsumu ruffles his matted, sweaty hair.

-

Kageyama and Hinata wind up on the streets of Miyagi.

“You brought a coat this time,” Kageyama notices.

Hinata huffs at him. “Better safe than sorry.”

The weather is bitter, but it’s not piercing, because he’s here with Hinata. Hinata, whom he’s impossibly proud of in a way he can’t describe. Above them, dull grey betrays the possibility of snow later on in the night, and the pavement is dark, shadowed with memories of years past where they walked this exact path, side by side, nearly every day.

It’s a little different. Hinata’s got a few more inches on his high school height. He’s not carrying a bike. His hair is shorter.

Kageyama is desperately in love with him.

White breaths escape the both of them, floating into the murky, overcast sky. Kageyama doesn’t, strangely, feel the same apprehension that he did in his younger years. He isn’t tossed up in anxiety, walking a tightrope, trying to do everything proper and correct to keep these secret feelings deep inside.

Because, well, he doesn’t feel like they’re that secret anymore.

It’s just a fact of the universe -- Sawamura is the scariest captain he’s ever had, Oikawa wears eyeliner even if he tries to convince you he doesn’t, Kageyama likes Hinata.

Days and months and years of tension unfurled with their game, and with this purge, this sheer catharsis, he feels lighter than ever. He feels safe. He feels _happy._

For once in his life, he’s satisfied.

“This is so nostalgic,” Hinata notes. “I haven’t been here since high school.”

“Me neither.”

Hinata comes to a short pause. Then, after a moment’s contemplation, holds out his hand to Kageyama like he’s presenting him with a trophy. The latter takes it assuredly, because it makes Hinata smile. He steps a little closer, and he cuddles into Kageyama’s neck. He’s starting to think the powers that be are keeping their height difference as constant as possible so he can always have this. There’s a silent understanding between them that neither of them feel the need to voice.

They start to walk.

“So, how was Rio?” Kageyama begins.

“Oh, it was _awesome_. It’s so hot over there, like, all the time. And sunny. I barely wore a sweater. Did ya see how tan I got? Did ya?” Hinata rambles. Kageyama most certainly did notice.

“Nope.”

“Where are you looking?” Hinata releases a high-pitched whine. “Anyways, and then I met with Tooru-san, and we played volleyball together-- you should’ve seen it, Kageyama, the Great King himself faceplanting in the sand? It was so funny.”

Kageyama recalls the selfie. “Did you get a photo?”

“You’re not supposed to have your phone on the court, Kageyama,” Hinata says, nudging him affectionately. “It’s all locked up in here.” He taps his temple through his tuque with his free hand. “Tooru-san even called me by my name! I’m no longer Chibi-chan!”

“Good for you.” Not like he’s keeping track, but Kageyama thinks that means he’s on first name basis with all the setters he’s friends with except him.

“My partner for beach volleyball-- he’s gonna be a Dad soon. He and his wife got married right before he left. She proposed right after one of our games, isn’t that cool?”

Thinking about proposing marriage after a volleyball game kind of makes Kageyama a little dizzy. “Was she playing?”

“Nah, just watching. She’s super cool.”

Kageyama pulls more conversation out of thin air. “How’d you guys talk?”

“Uh, with our mouths.”

“No, dumbass. Did they know Japanese?”

“Oh. Um, some people knew a little, but we mainly spoke Portuguese,” Hinata appends.

“How many languages do you know?”

Hinata titters. “More than you, _meu querido._ " he says smugly.

Kageyama doesn’t know what he just said, but he assumes he’s calling him an idiot. “I know enough,” he insists vehemently. He can speak English, the debate is on whether he speaks it well.

“Uh-huh, whatever you say.”

Their rhythm is unchanged, despite the time they spent apart. Kageyama wonders distantly how volleyball works in Brazil. Do you need to spike up instead of down?

They walk, they talk about nothing, they talk about everything. Hinata gushes over his team; Kageyama hypes up his hitters. They trade insults and stories back and forth, and when Kageyama feels a laugh of his own rumble in his chest, Hinata looks up at him with wonder.

Jesus Christ. Kageyama cannot handle him.

The streetlamps glow their amicable artificial yellow light, something Kageyama didn’t think he would ever be reminiscing over. With each new wind through the trees, he thinks it’s about to snow. The sky above only grows heavier and darker with the threat, and he can already hear the crunch of freshly-fallen flakes underfoot.

The entire day has him feeling wistful. Seeing Hinata again, and being able to play him for the first time since middle school, walking these same roads lined with promise and paved with desire, sends a specific, warm spiral all the way down to his toes, keeping him comfortable as the temperature approaches the negatives.

He’s not on edge because of Hinata, it’s the opposite.

He doesn’t want to let him go.

“Hey, Kageyama,” Hinata starts, deft.

“What?”

They slow, and then stop completely. The world is eerily silent -- why isn’t there anyone out, tonight? “Can I…” His voice peters off, and then there’s quiet before he tries again. “Can I call you Tobio?”

And the rollercoaster inside Kageyama finally reaches its peak--

“I mean, it’s weird I still say Kageyama, isn’t it?” Hinata adds in a rush. “After, well, yaknow…”

Hinata’s shoulders rise and fall as he breathes, then dips away from him and pivots on his feet so he can look Kageyama in the eyes. “Because…” he sighs. “Ugh, I’m not gonna do this from here.” 

He jumps up, and Kageyama, conditioned into a response, quickly catches him before he can dig his toes into Kageyama’s knees for balance. He puts his arms around his neck, settling into place. At eye-level, he stares meaningfully into Kageyama, eyes glittering, bright and hard, like twin sunstones. He’s a black hole -- the brightest thing in the known universe, but an endless pit of collapsed gravity, drawing in everything indiscriminately, tearing up his defenses, drawing him in deeper and deeper and deeper…

His face, unbeknownst to him, gravitates a little closer to Hinata’s, angling ever so slightly.

His heartbeat makes its way into his ears.

“Do you remember…” Kageyama finds the uncharacteristic timidity extremely endearing, if not a little maddening. He can almost taste Hinata’s breath. “Before I left?”

“Yes.”

Tension falls away, and Hinata visibly loosens. “I did that because…”

He trails off. His face inches closer, his eyelids flutter like the nerves in Kageyama’s stomach, their noses almost bump. The temperature of the air shoots up several degrees from the heat rolling off them in waves. Kageyama trembles a little.

The ensuing silence from Hinata is so incredibly agonizing.

“Hey,” Kageyama says diffidently, low and slow and sultry. “Kiss me like you mean it this time.”

Hinata swallows -- Kageyama’s eyes trace the movement. “I didn’t want you to stop thinking about me.”

“Never did.”

“That’s embarrassing.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Their eyes meet one final time, for a last beg of permission, before their lips do.

Kageyama knows exactly what the world does, this time around; it slips into indistinct shapes and colours, it blends and congeals together, it drips away beneath the two of them. It may be a winter’s night but you wouldn’t know that from Hinata’s lips, warm and certain and lovely, which, just like his hands, fit perfectly into Kageyama. Stars behind clouds, spotlights from streetlamps, all wink away, giving the two of them privacy in their own idyllic fantasy.

Kageyama doesn’t exactly know what he’s supposed to do. How he’s supposed to move his nose, how he’s supposed to angle his mouth -- it’s all so new and foreign, but he puts everything he can into this kiss. Every point he scored by Hinata’s side. Every sleepy morning he suffered in class because he couldn’t get Hinata out of his mind the night prior. Every drop of blood, sweat, or tears that he shed over the course of his volleyball career.

He kisses Hinata Shouyou with everything he has to offer. All his talent, all his mediocrity, every conflicting emotion, he puts into this as he pushes further into Hinata under the unknowing sky.

There’s nothing left in his lungs, but you’d have to drag him away kicking and screaming.

Hinata whines thinly against his mouth.

"I love you," he murmurs all in a single gasp as he draws back, a dream in dazed pinks and crimsons.

Kageyama's mouth buzzes, hot and sure, and the response comes as easily as blinking. "I know."

And he does know. He really, truly, unequivocally knows.

To Hell with nights spent wondering and shameful glances snuck during quiet moments and chaste tittering touches. Hinata just kissed him until he couldn't breathe, like there was no one else in the world but them, and although Kageyama may not know much about crushes and romance and love, he thinks that if it isn't what he's feeling right now, like he's at the apex of his highest jump, oxygenless from the most flawless play, it's not anything worth having.

If it's love, that he has with Hinata Shouyou, that's fine with him. And if it's not, if it's something entirely new, he's okay with that, too, he's too giddy to care.

The important part is that whatever they have, he has it with Hinata.

Kageyama isn't a teenager in his room torn up over blossoming, uncomfortable feelings for his best friend. He's here, now, in front of that same man, glowing brightly against the dark sky. He doesn't have to imagine Hinata's hands everywhere anymore.

(This is so much better than any of his fantasies could have hoped to be.)

“So, can we do that again?” Hinata asks meekly. 

They do it again. And again. Pinned to a wall of some building or another, Hinata wraps his legs around Kageyama’s middle and presses his hands to the side of his head, his fingers sliding up his hat and into his hair. Kageyama pushes as far as he can into him, his own hands settled on the supple curve of Hinata’s jaw. He kisses him. He kisses him silly, over and over, because it’s _Hinata,_ and goddamn did he miss him, and goddamn is he proud, and goddamn, he’s never going to let him go now that he has him.

He wants Hinata to be with him. He wants to stand beside him -- as his partner, as his adversary, it doesn’t really matter, as long as they’re together on top of the world. Kageyama kisses him until his mouth starts getting sore. Until his lungs start to scream. Until Hinata pulls away, gasping and red and gorgeous.

“How long have you known?” he asks, out of breath.

Brain fuzzy, Kageyama blurts out his response. “What?”

“How long. Have you liked me?” he asks in a slurred, assertive tone.

“Uh, start of second year?”

Hinata, hair mussed up under his displaced tuque, shines like the sun. “I win.”

“You win?”

“I liked you in our first year. Before you did.”

Kageyama balks. “No way. When?”

“Hmm, probably the Tokyo Training Camp. After we figured out our new quick,” Hinata admits.

“That’s no fair.” Kageyama’s lips split into a massive smile, and he blooms. “That’s just when I realized. I liked you before that.”

“Oh, yeah?” Hinata goads, mimicking his expression.

“When we lost against Seijoh. Outside the arena.”

“After I pushed you to the ground? Kinky, aren’t we?” 

Kageyama squishes his cheeks. That’s definitely not a Hinata word. He’s going to speak with Miya and Oikawa later.

“If we’re playing by those rules? I liked you from the moment our quick first worked out, during the 3-on-3,” Hinata asserts.

“Fine! I liked you as soon as I saw you!”

Hinata gapes. “Really?” he asks, wondrous. “Coming on a little strong there, aren’t we, Tobio?”

Tobio. Tobio. Tobio.

Kageyama is now certain that Hinata knows _exactly_ what he does to him, and likely always has, the bastard. But he doesn’t care anymore, because Hinata loves him, and really, he’s too deliriously ecstatic, an unknown feeling previously, to focus on much else.

“Can you say that again?”

“Say what? Tobio? Tobio. Tobiooooo.” Hinata indulges him in his classic annoying style. “Hey, world!” he bellows into the calm, serene night, tilting his head skyward. “I love Kageyama Tobio!”

Red everywhere that’s important, Kageyama pushes his thumb against Hinata’s lips. “Someone might hear you, be quiet,” he instructs. Hinata pouts.

“What, are you worried, Tobio? Something wrong, Tobio?” he guffaws. Kageyama can barely look at him. “You’re so cute, Tobio.”

“I--” Too flustered to speak, Kageyama stutters like a bunk engine. “I am _not_ cute.”

“No, you’re super cute, Tobio. Hecka cute, I would say.” Hinata squishes the sides of his face with his gloved hands. “Tobio, you can’t hide anything from me.” 

Kageyama is approximately fifteen seconds from having a heart attack and dying. He’s a professional athlete. He maintains a good diet. He sleeps well. He thought he was safe from cardiovascular issues. He did not factor Hinata into the equation. “Okay, Shouyou,” he hits back.

Hinata quiets.

“See how it feels?” Kageyama teases.

“No! Tobio! Not fair!” he cries.

“What’s not fair? You started it!”

“Nooooo,” he wails.

“Yeeeeees.”

“Hmph! Fine!”

And he kisses him again. Kageyama can’t believe Hinata was into him in high school. He can’t believe that everything he was worried about was all a bust. He can’t believe that Hinata liked him, and didn’t tell him! They could’ve been doing this stuff for years! Why haven’t they been doing this stuff for years?

(The irony of these thoughts is lost on a gleeful Kageyama.)

Their first (second) kiss had been longing, desperate, spun with desire and clipped by anticipation. Now, they kiss, lackadaisical, having the time of their lives. Hinata kisses his nose, his forehead, his cheeks, he peppers them all over his face, he laughs between movements, and Kageyama is very glad no one has run into them in this little alley between buildings.

Because he doesn’t want this to stop.

Hinata leans back again, pressing against the brick wall behind him. “So, um… Tobio.. I’m like 80% more sure you’re not a volleyball robot anymore,” he starts gingerly.

Kageyama cocks his head. “Wha?”

He looks askance, left and right. “80%. There’s still the other 20% that isn’t convinced.”

“What are you talking about?” Kageyama asks, looking at Hinata’s lips.

“I’m saying,” he says, louder, voice wavering a little with nerves, “that I want you to convince me you’re human.”

“Is that not what we’re doing?” Kageyama responds dumbly. “I think saliva would damage a robot.”

Hinata’s mouth flattens, and with a sigh, he angles his head toward Kageyama’s ear, and speaks in a low whisper that makes every hair on his body stand on end. “I want you to show me, idiot,” he drawls.

It’s unfortunate, now, that, presently, this is what reminds Kageyama that Hinata is wrapped around his waist. He blushes harder than he thought he could, and he can’t look his love in the eye to save his life. “I can do that. I guess. Yeah.”

Hinata looks at him seriously. “Are you sure?”

Kageyama swallows. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

Relief pours out in droves over Hinata’s face. “Okay. Cool.”

Yet another thing Kageyama has zero experience with and didn’t think he’d be doing tonight. The universe is filled with surprises, but he thinks it’s okay, because Hinata is here with him, and he’s invincible so long as he’s by his side.

Besides, he really, _really,_ doesn’t want Hinata to stop touching him.

-

So he touches. And touches. And keeps touching. Pronounced, well-defined muscles lining his arms and accenting his abdomen. A strong, sharp jawline that demands attention. A mouth he’s made belong to him. Hair that his fingertips manage to get lost in, despite its length. Sturdy, powerful legs. He learns where and where not to touch. What places make which noises. Every inch of him he takes in, he appreciates, he conquers, he loves.

Kageyama’s body becomes an extension of his own, with how his fingers tease across sweat-slicked, flushed skin, how his eyes meet the other’s gaze, which betrays an emotion so deep and wanting that Hinata can’t help but shudder at the sight of.

(They’re not very good at it, but it’s alright; they have plenty of opportunities to learn.)

Then they lie together, unable to even speak, Hinata hearing so clearly a racing heartbeat through a solid, bare chest. His heart is pounding, too, and his breaths are heavy, laboured, not with physical exertion, but exhausted by passion.

And as they fall asleep that night, Hinata tucked safely into Kageyama’s resting form, he touches the tips of his fingers, he weaves their hands together like an artisan, and wonders how he went so long without this, without his touch, his touch, his touch…

-

Kageyama is, in a lot of ways, grateful for how the years have treated Hinata. The time showed in tanned skin and well-defined muscles that made him a Hell of a lot nicer to look at than when they first met. He’s been noticing it for years, but it really came as the shock when he first came back from Rio, when he first saw him in front of the bathroom after painful weeks _knowing_ they were in the same city.

He’s always been a ball of boundless confidence and athletic prowess, but he’s grown into himself.

The thing he’s not grateful for is that muscle is heavy.

In their high school years, when Hinata launched a surprise attack and threw himself onto Kageyama, even if he stumbled a little, he still managed to remain upright. This is because Hinata was mostly skin and bones for a good part of their Karasuno career. He started gaining muscle more in their second year, still not hard to carry.

At age 25, Hinata is a whole man. A whole man who is in the process of crushing his lungs.

“Tobio!” He is less than a foot away from Kageyama’s face, and he is yelling. “Tobio, it’s _snowing_ _!_ ”

Hinata is straddling Kageyama’s waist from where he sits atop his body, which had been asleep just mere moments ago. Instead of waking up to an alarm, his eyes instead snap open to his boyfriend’s bright, shining face, filling his field of vision. He distinctly feels like he hasn’t gotten eight hours.

“What time is it?” he mutters, wrestling an arm to his face and rubbing his eyes.

"Five! But it's snowing! Get up!"

Ah. Hinata had gone to bed earlier than he the night before. Kageyama still has about an hour, give or take, until he gets a full night's sleep, but Hinata is bouncing up and down on him like a madman, and he's been finding his ability to deny him waning over time.

...Under normal circumstances. Right now he just wants to push Hinata off, turn over, and crash back to sleep until at least 6. "Let me sleep," he complains. He’s struggling to speak with Hinata’s warm hands pressing down on his chest.

“Uh-uh.” Kageyama can almost taste his minty breath. Hinata shuffles backwards along his half-awake form, hands sliding up to the collar of his sleep shirt and jerking him into a sitting position. His blood circulation is slower than Hinata’s enthusiasm, and his brain goes to fuzzy static for a few moments, so when his consciousness returns Hinata is already yanking him out of their bed. “Come on, ya big lug! You don’t want the snow to stop before you’ve seen it!”

A tired Kageyama is a dangerous Kageyama indeed, and he lets out a frustrated grunt as Hinata tugs and keeps tugging, until his feet hit the cold wooden floors and he nearly topples over. Hinata’s already dressed for the occasion in an MSBY-brand winter tracksuit (he no longer plays for the team, but he reps the merch, because, in his words: “the claw marks are so cool!”) as he leads Kageyama, dressed only in a t-shirt and boxers (the night chill is oft abated by Hinata’s body warmth, anyways) to their balcony, throwing open the door. Immediately, Old Man Winter breathes frigid air into their quiet home, causing Kageyama to shiver and blink his half-closed eyes at the way the light, dim as it may be, glows on the white snow that’s gathered at their feet.

“‘S cold,” Kageyama mutters, indistinctly and obviously. Hinata, blessedly, isn’t trying to lead him outside when he isn’t wearing shoes, but he himself toes at the snow and then jumps back. 

“Ack!” he exclaims, as if he lives in a world where snow isn’t just frozen water.

“Why’d you do that, dummy?” Kageyama asks, unable and unwilling to put any bite into his words. Instead, sleep slurs the sentence, making it come out low and easy and vaguely affectionate

“Just to see what it felt like.”

“Of course.” Kageyama can’t really take his right hand away from Hinata’s vice grip, so with his left he rubs his right arm, inhaling ice. He can’t remember the last time it was this cold out, or maybe it just feels as such, having been ripped from his familiar, inviting covers. He vocalizes his discomfort with a non-committal sound between a groan and a sigh. Hinata looks at him, hazel brown eyes catching the not-quite-there sunlight.

“Cold?” he says with a smirk. The insinuating, smug tone of voice makes Kageyama want to contest him right away, but the more reasonable part of his brain, which is beginning to shake off the mud of seven hours, informs him he should hold his tongue. Instead, he focuses on Hinata’s breath, puffing like white smoke, as he taunts him. When he breathes out, the very same rises from his lips.

“Maybe,” he concurs reluctantly. Hinata grins and pads back toward him, nestling right into his side and nuzzling into his shoulder. His body is welcome in the face of winter, which hadn’t really felt all too real up until now. The temperature had steadily been dropping for the past week, each day bringing the new yearly low, before crystallizing overnight while the two of them were asleep, looking at how much has managed to pile up already.

Hinata’s exhales aren’t quite as white as the snow, but they’re getting there, and his breathing syncs with Kageyama’s like it had never been different in the first place.

The sky is dark -- to be expected at 5am in the middle of winter -- but it isn’t pitch black. It’s a hazy, dusky blue colour, grey in places, a little violet in others. Bright white stars, spilled and spread like salt over a marble table, twinkle high up above the two of them. And between the stars and the end of the sky, dances flakes of snow. It’s not a poetic scene of slight, dainty rain, nor does it come down in raging torrents, blanketing the world in a heavy cover. It just falls.

It falls close to the horizon, where the beginnings of muted oranges creep out. The moon is still out, milky and waxing, hauntingly bright, not at all perturbed by the way the sun begins to threaten its position from so low beneath it.

Kageyama isn’t so romantic as to stand here with Hinata and watch the sun crest. He’s still tired, and it’s damn freezing. But it’s a little more bearable with Hinata latched to his side, sinking more into him with every passing moment, using the arm Kageyama has put around his shoulders as a kind of safety blanket, if the way he has interlaced his fingers into the hand at the end of it is any implication. He’s fallen quiet; seeing Hinata in such a state has become a good deal more common now that the two live together, but it’s still a little odd when he shuts his mouth for more than a couple minutes at a time. Hinata is a lot of things, and more often than not, a morning person tends to be one of them. But Kageyama appreciates the fact that he’s realized that his boyfriend isn’t exactly well enough equipped at a little past 5 to respond to his quips and stories.

Kageyama doesn’t really know how he got here. An Olympic athlete, he knows how. He could write a detailed list on all the steps he took to reach this level, the way he trained everyday, everything he learned, everything he sacrificed. Every step he took alone.

What he means is he doesn’t exactly know how he came to be standing beside Hinata Shouyou. Hinata, who acted like the stars were hung in the sky especially for him, like destiny and fate and the inevitability of such were dumb stories people afraid of setbacks told themselves. Hinata, who never once gave up, who crash-landed into his life, who screamed that he was here and _meant_ it, when no one else did. Hinata, whom Kageyama still hasn’t been able to find the exact right words to describe to just how much his life changed with him in it. He thinks he would get all tongue-tied if he even tried.

Hinata, who uses up all the hot water if Kageyama doesn’t explicitly tell him not to. Hinata, who almost always without fail forgets when he puts clothes in the dryer, and runs to the laundry room hours later yelling bloody murder while Kageyama is trying to cook dinner. Hinata, who likes to hog the blankets and be the big spoon even though it’s a never-ending struggle and sleep on Kageyama’s chest because he says his heartbeat is comforting. Seriously, who says that a heartbeat is comforting? And how is the person who says it the same person who swore to him in a tear-filled vow more than a decade ago that he would beat him?

Kageyama thinks that a lot of other setters are missing out.

“Hmm… Tobio?” Hinata tips his head awkwardly, craning his neck to look up at Kageyama.

Drawn out of his contemplative thoughts (maybe he’s a little sappy in the morning; his prefrontal cortex hasn’t exactly lit all the way up yet, and his limbic brain is relishing in the fact that he hasn’t gotten enough sleep), Kageyama glances at him. His eyes are shimmering and focused, hardened with years’ worth of unyielding determination. Kageyama loves his eyes. “What?”

“I just wanted you to see the snow. You can go back to bed.”

The snow is pretty, but soon it’ll melt and make Kageyama’s socks soggy when he goes to run errands. He yawns. “I’m glad I have your permission.”

Hinata buries his head into his chest. Kageyama thinks it’s meant to be a headbutt. He goes to step away, leave Hinata to his snow-filled machinations (no doubt packing snowballs and stockpiling them to nail Kageyama with -- such is the curse of being in love ( _love!_ ) with someone who has the mental age of an elementary school child), but Hinata continues to hang onto him. He pulls shut the balcony door and shoots him a perplexed look.

“I’ll come back up with you, too,” Hinata offers, once again, in his quiet voice.

“Why? Are you tired?”

Hinata, hand in his, arm around his waist, doesn’t say anything else in words. Shining, gorgeous, mercurial brown to blue, his steady gaze holds Kageyama’s. His cheeks are flushed, from the cold, or maybe from something else--

Ah.

Kageyama’s breath stops in his throat, what a traitor his larynx is. Then the way clears, and he inhales again. “Alright.”

It’s 5:15 A.M, and Kageyama thinks he’s the luckiest man alive.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if there's any google docs italics glitches, this is SO LONG i couldn't grab em all  
> big thank you to my very dear irl friend/enabler/co-conspirator @overwhelmingly_awesome, whom i got into hq right before it ended and listened to my self-indulgent ramblings like a champ and has been my #1 hypeman. love you bitch. similarly, s/o to folklore, the sticks, and very good bad thing, which i wrote a lot of this to  
> god, man. i guess this is my written tribute to haikyuu. i don't know what to say. my brain is fried. i love this manga, i love these characters, this story means the world and more to me. this was mostly spurned because i desperately wanted kagehina to hug after their game, and it just kept going. this is an inside joke taken to its natural extreme. i was like "it's gonna be 10k!" and then it Wasn't. wow. can you believe kageyama and hinata are in love  
> i hope you enjoyed it. i loved writing it. miwa and tsukki are integral to my kghn experience  
> (kageyama's deodorant is old spice fiji, by the way)


End file.
